Answers to Questions I Don't Have
by GraydonGirl
Summary: I started kissing her back. This is so wrong, but I can’t help but think it feels so right. On one hand she’s my worst enemy… supposedly. She had a relationship my best friend… allegedly. And I still have a girlfriend that loves me… hopefully. AU
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Why is it the way it is

**Chapter 1: Why is it the way it is?**

We all have our whys. Why did this happen? Why do we do this to each other? Why do people watch American Idol? We all have our whys, but who has the answers? A lot of people think I do, but then again a lot of people thought the 80's were making a come back. So my story starts of with me and this girl. Who knew she'd have that big of an impact on my life? Certainly not me. Okay, well it sort of goes like this…

She's a blonde, I'm a brunette. She has blue eyes, I have brown. She comes from a _real_ family, I come from a broken home. She's a brain, I'm an artist. She's popular, and I'm… not. We are complete opposites and that's just the way is it.

She is the queen of what every typical high school student on TV looks like. She's pretty, popular, smart, and everything you could imagine possible. She could succeed in what ever she wants and look good doing it. That's just the way she is. Let's clear a few things up. Her name's Spencer Carlin, the most popular girl at King High. Cheerleader, of course. Sits at the popular table with all of her cheerleader friends. You know, the ones who look like the wind is constantly blowing in their hair and always seem to have a cup of Starbucks in their hand. Her best friend is Madison Duarte. Queen Bitch- I mean Queen Bee, at this school. Next to Spencer that is. Madison is more of the right hand man, the evil minion, if you will. But don't get me wrong, the Carlin girl's got some bite to her.

I would know. She hates me. Just like I hate her. But there's a reason for that. As she stands as the queen of the popular, I stand right opposite her as the queen of the unpopular. The misfits, or all of the people who get excluded for not fitting that typical standard that everyone thinks is right. I guess you could say I'm the girl that those people look up to. Just like how the preps look up to Spencer.

That's why we hate each other. Running in two opposite cliques just doesn't play well with the Gods. We've been known to get into fights here and there. Mostly verbal, of course… _mostly_ being the operative word. But everyone knows we don't fit together.

But I don't care. I like my life. I've got people who look up to me, and follow my lead. And of course I've got my own best friend to have my back. Megan. She's just like me in almost every single way. Dark hair, artist, doesn't really care too much about school. And not to mention we're both into girls. But not into each other. That'd just be weird. But I'd be lying if I said people didn't think we were dating. We hold hands some times, in a friendly sort of way. But we're close, just not that close.

She's sort of like my Madison, only less bitchier… that is unless you piss her off. If you do you're on your own. But I'm the person everyone comes to for answers. I'm the person that people make important decisions with. I'm the person who makes us misfits function.

I'm the Spencer Carlin of the unpopular. I'm Ashley Davies.

But I would never call myself a 'Spencer Carlin' out loud. People would laugh at me, and as a leader I'm expected to have a good reputation. That's one thing Spencer and I share in common. Oh that and the fact that she also likes girls.

But I guess not too many people know that. Especially since she's only admitted it to one person. Her girlfriend… well ex-girlfriend now. AKA my best friend: Megan.

They dated a while ago for a few months. Always kept it under wraps. I mean, I guess I could understand. Why would Megan want to be seen with Spencer? So they agreed to keep it a secret. For months they would sneak around, and do… what ever they did. I really don't want to know. Of course, naturally, I didn't find out about their relationship until Megan came to me crying one day. She spilled, but told me not to tell anyone about Spencer. I was pretty pissed at Megan for a while. I mean, I put her through some tough shit because I couldn't believe my best friend would do that to me. She would date the one girl I couldn't stand. Now, as much as I would have liked to use it as black mail against the blonde, I promised Megan I wouldn't tell. And I think it's good that Meg has a heart, or a conscience, what ever that thing is. So for the longest time I have kept her secret. Plus it wouldn't look too good that my best friend dated my enemy. So I eventually let it go, knowing it would probably never get out.

I never really knew what happened between them and why they broke up, but I didn't push it. Instead, I let it slide and did it with grace.

Now, you're probably asking '_why_?' right about now. 'Why are you telling me this? Why do you care so much?' Well… that's a really good question. I just wish I had the answer.

So here I am, sitting at my lunch table, on the opposite side of the quad from Spencer's table, with my friends.

"Ashley?... earth to Ashley?" oh, now would probably be a really good time to come back to reality.

"what?" I ask shaking my head of all Spencer thoughts.

"skinny jeans or just regular tight ones?" Stephanie asks. Another one of my friends. There is always some one asking me these types of questions. I don't know why. They just do.

"what top?" I ask, taking a sip of my water.

"my purple lace top"

"skinny jeans" I answer. "if you wore regular jeans you'd be sitting over there with the preps" I say nodding to the cheerleaders who always seem to be laughing at something.

"okay, thanks" she says with a smile and gets up to do other stuff.

"pizza or burger?" Megan asks, deciding which one to eat from her tray.

"pizza" I answer simply.

It's like this every day. And it feels like it will never change. Don't get me wrong now. I love being a role model to people, but I think it's getting to the point where people have just totally stopped thinking for themselves. I swear any day now I'm just expecting someone to come up to me and ask me 'who am I?'. It'll just take a matter of time.

"did you finish the Math homework?" Meg asks me.

"do I ever?"

"good point" she says and goes back to eating her pizza.

"do you think Aiden did it?" she asks. He's another friend of ours. But technically he's also a friend of the preppy group. It's weird, he's the only person who fits in with both groups. He's kind of the neutral guy between our two groups. He's also sitting with their group today.

"do you want to go ask?" I ask her as I motion to Aiden who's sitting at Spencer's table. She looks over and I see the disgust appear across her face.

"I'll pass" she says.

"coward" I say getting up to do it for her.

"but you love me" she calls out.

"you bet your ass I do" I yell back as I make my way over to him. "hey Aid, did you do the math homework?" I ask, ignoring everyone else. They all turn around to look at me like I'm a freaking alien. "_what?_" I snap at them. They turn back around, but Spencer and Madison are still glaring at me.

"uh, yeah, sure" Aiden says, reaching into his bag and searching through the mess of papers.

"what? Not smart enough to do it on your own?" Madison snarls at me. Here we go again.

"you would know" I say back to her as I watch Aiden search painfully slowly. I bet he's doing this on purpose too.

"just copy your homework and get lost" Spencer says to me.

"aw, look Maddy, your girlfriend can actually speak" I smirk back. Come on Aiden, hurry up.

"girlfriend? I think you got us confused with you and your lezzy best friend. Why don't you just go back to the reject table where you belong" Madison says. And I take this opportunity to look at Spencer and see the slightest hint of guilt in her eyes. I draw my eyes back to the bitchy best friend sitting beside her and I see Aiden finally pull out a couple of sheets from his bag. I promised Megan I wouldn't tell… and I'm not going to.

"… I will" I say softly, with no fear. Never show fear. It's a sign of weakness. "thanks Aid" I say and take off. I go back to my table with Megan and hand her the sheets of homework.

"thanks, hun" she says carelessly.

I look back over at the popular table to see Spencer's eyes still following mine. She never really knew that I knew about her, but I guess that's changed now. We only have one thing in common, and ironically enough, that one thing is the thing she wants to hide.

We are complete opposites. She has her friends, I have mine. She hides who she is, I'm free to be who ever I want. Bottom line…

She's is her and I am me.

**Hey everybody, I finally decided to put up my new spash story. I've had it on my comp for like a month. I think it's going to turn out pretty good. At least I hope so. Tell me what you think about it. Oh and btw this chapter had a lot words and not so much dialogue in action, just to let you know, I don't plan on having most of my chapters like this, I'm more of a dialogue person. –GraydonGirl.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Why do we keep secrets

**Chapter 2:** **Why do we keep secrets?**

The next day at school I pull up in my convertible, and yes I said convertible. Just because I'm considered a reject doesn't mean I can't have a mean car. So I pull up in my car, and walk towards the school to see Meg talking to someone around the corner. I'm about to walk over and say hi when I realize who she's talking to. It's Spencer. I watch them from behind one of the line of lockers and I probably look like a stalker, but what ever. All I see is a whole lot of hand gestures, a little bit of anger, sadness and just a whole jumble of emotion. Oh and by the way, it's Spencer who's doing the yelling. Why am I not surprised? I wonder what they're talking about.

I continue to watch like the stalker I am, until I see Spencer's eyes meet mine. I quickly take a step back behind the bulletin board and pray she didn't see me, but I know she did. I slowly peak my head around the corner to see Spencer gone and Megan just walking off.

"enjoy the show?" a voice asks from behind me. I turn around to see none other than the blonde who seems to be on my mind a lot more now.

"I don't know what you're talking about" I answer.

"I saw you staring" she says as she leans back and crosses her arms. Ooh a _serious_ pose. How lame.

"oh please, don't flatter yourself. I was watching Megan"

"are you two dating?" she has the guts to ask me.

"what's it to you?"

"nothing. I just… nothing" she cuts herself off.

"Hey Ash" Stephanie says as she and Jason come up behind me. They obviously saw I was talking to Spencer and came as back up.

"hey Spencer" Madison says as she and another cheerleader drone comes up behind her. 3 to 3. It's not even about the numbers though. With us, it's always been about the stare down.

"Ashley" I hear my voice being called. I turn to the side a little to see Megan walking over, to add to the back up. "come on let's go, they're not even worth it" she says trying to pull me away.

"that's right, just go run along with your girlfriend" Madison says, and we both stop to turn around. Neither of us like that she teases us that way, and we sure as hell won't back down without a fight at this point.

"you know Madison, we're not dating. Any _dumbass_ could see that" I retaliate. And now it's Spencer's turn to cut in.

"why don't you just get lost and go back to your loser friends" Spencer says.

"well, why don't you get lost and go back to your air head friends" I say back loudly. And I can see more and more people are getting added to each side. She has about 7 people and I have about 8 people.

"why don't you make me?" she says taking a step closer.

"you don't want to go there with me, _sweetie_" I say taking a step closer. "I'm not afraid to kick your pretty little ass back to where you came from" I say as I stare her down.

"what makes you think you're going to be the one doing the ass kicking?"

"because the only thing you could do is probably throw your little pompoms at me" I say flicking her cheerleader uniform, just pissing her off even more.

"oh and what would you do? Throw your black nail polish at me?" she asks looking down at my hands.

"oh you'd see black nail polish when I'd smack you across the face!" I threaten.

"bring it on, Bitch!" she yells, and I'm about to go at her when Megan holds me back.

"Mr. Tran, 11 o'clock" Meg mutters and we all turn around to see Mr. Tran watching us carefully. I take a step back from Spencer and Meg let's go of me.

"I'd watch what you do Carlin, I know a lot more about you than you think" I say as I turn around to walk away. As soon as we're around the corner and everyone is gone, Meg pushes me.

"what the hell, Ash? I told you not to say anything"

"I didn't!"

"_I know a lot more about you than you think_" she repeats.

"that could mean anything"

"but it didn't mean anything. It meant something and Spencer knows it!"

"so what? That's her own problem."

"no, that's my problem too. And yours. If this secret gets out, it's as if I date your enemy"

"…well you kind of did" I whisper back knowingly.

"and wouldn't that just look great to everyone else" she's right.

"what were you talking to her about before?" I ask her.

"what?"

"you and cheerleader" I answer. "I saw you like 10 minutes ago."

"nothing. It wasn't important" she answers lifelessly.

"did she threaten you or something? Because we can totally go at it. I've been waiting to kick Madison's ass for 3 years now" I say trying to get a rise out of her.

"did you almost spill the thing about me and her yesterday?" she asks suddenly.

"no" I answer easily.

"she was freaking out about it earlier"

"oh please, all I did was call her Madison's girlfriend. It was a joke"

"Ashley!"

"what?!" it's not like I came right out and called her a lesbian.

"you promised! You promised you wouldn't say anything!"

"and I didn't! It's not like anyone caught on. Even Madison didn't catch on. It's not like she's smart enough anyways…"

"are you sure?"

"yes, I'm sure Madison is an idiot" I say jokingly, but not really.

"you know what I mean…"

"look, no one knows anything. You don't have to worry" I assure her.

"okay, please just don't make any more jokes like that. I don't want to risk letting anything out. And when you fight with her, don't bring it up." Megan tells me.

"why do you care so much? I mean, why protect her?"

"just because" she answers. And I hate that answer. 'Just because' is not a real answer. But since she's my best friend I let it slide. Soon enough the bell rings and we see everyone start heading to their class.

"let's go" I breathe out as I hold out my hand for her to take. She grabs a hold of it and we walk to class together. We're pretty much a couple, minus the kissing, sex, nudity… oh and romantic feelings.

……………

As the day went by I went to my classes and it's pretty much the same thing over and over again. People ask me to make decisions for them and I do. I think today, I've already been asked what sunglasses to wear, which TV shows to watch, what music to listen to, and the list just goes on. The only different about today is that Spencer has been staring at me the entire lunch, and it's like I'm the only one to notice it.

The worst part… we have last period together.

So here we are sitting in History class and it's like her eyes are glued to me. I see people around me start moving their desks around and shuffling their feet. I guess we're working in groups. I turn my table to face my friends and every few minutes I look up to see Spencer staring at me. This is just getting ridiculous now.

While everyone else is busy talking and the teacher is marking the work or what ever, I take this opportunity to stare right back at her. And she just keeps on staring back. One thing I do have to say, is this girl is just as fearless as I am… except when it comes to sexuality.

I notice everyone's just fooling around in class so I get up out of my seat and make my way over to her.

"take a picture, it'll last longer" I say.

"I would, but then I would have a picture that I wouldn't want, so what's the point?" she answers smartly.

"well I just figured since you've been staring at me all day that it might be easier to have a picture"

"I'd bet you like that, wouldn't you?" is she flirting with me? Oh wait, no, that's just the teasing flirting. So fake.

"look, I don't know why the hell you're so hung up on me today, but quit it, you're starting to freak me out" I say, and you know as soon as I use the word 'freak' something happens.

She's about to say something when the teacher decides now is a good time to be a teacher.

"Davies, sit down!" he yells at me and only me. What the hell? There's like 10 other kids in the class standing around and he picks me. It's only because he knows I'm one of the 'bad' students. I mean, get into trouble a few times and it's like it's expected of you every day.

"what? Oh come on Mr. Daniels, everyone else is standing around!" I point out.

"yes, but you're not being productive" neither is anyone else.

"I am so"

"oh really, then what are you and Miss. Carlin talking about?" he asks out loud.

"the assignment" I say like it's obvious.

"oh really?" he asks and I nod. "is that true Miss. Carlin?" he asks and she nods as well. She knows if she had said no, she'd be in shit too. "okay, then, can either of you tell me what the assignment is about?" oh fuck. I look at Spencer who's just as lost as I am.

"History?" I guess. I mean, that's got to be right since we're _in_ history class.

"nice try." He says. "but you two just earned yourself a detention after school. I do believe the storage closet needs a little cleaning out" is that even legal? To make two students do manual labour that isn't for school? Damn, yeah I thought it would be legal. "now sit down, Miss. Davies"

……………

As soon as the bell rang at the end of the day all of the students quickly cleared out of the class room and I was left sitting in the room with Mr. Daniels and Spencer Carlin. This is not my idea of afternoon fun.

"alright you two, let's go" he says grabbing his keys and exiting the room. We both get up silently and follow him out of the room, down the hall and to a room that looks like it hasn't been used in years.

"what is this? A jail for bad kids?" I mutter sarcastically.

"close, but no. It's the storage closet that the school uses, but hasn't been able to use properly because it's been too messy" Mr. Daniels answers my comment. He unlocks the door to reveal a small room full of dust cob webs and probably a whole lot of other junk I really don't care about.

"you're kidding right?" Spencer asks.

"maybe next time you'll be productive in my class" he says with a smirk. "here, be sure to lock up when you're done" he says as he hands over the key and leaves us alone in the closet. I take the key and it put in my pocket for now, but instead of cleaning I pull up a stool and sit down.

"alright, get to work" I say.

"nice try." She says handing me the garbage pale in the corner of the room. I guess this means I have to work too.

……………

After working for about 20 minutes I got fed up. I mean, what kind of teacher makes you clean out a closet as a detention?

"this is stupid" I say taking a seat back down on my stool.

"yeah, well the faster you clean the faster we get out of here" Spencer says as she cleans up another shelf.

"why are you such a goody goody?"

"I'm not a goody goody" she says, taking offense to my question.

"could have fooled me"

"I'd rather be a goody goody than a poser rebel"

"excuse me? I'm not a poser. And I certainly never called myself a rebel"

"then what do you consider yourself?" ah, labels, the thing everyone hates, because they always get labelled something they don't want to be.

"I'm not anything. I'm just me" I answer.

"yeah, cause that's why all of the losers in the school look up to you. Face it, you're a loser and so are all of your friends" she sneers at me. What the hell? Why is she so pissed?

"okay, so if I'm a loser, what does that make you?"

"popular" she answers. God, I think I hate her even more now.

"you know, you think you're so perfect with your blonde hair and cheerleader uniform and straight A's. And let me ask you, if you're _so_ perfect, why does half the school hate you?"

"half the school doesn't hate me.

"okay, well a good chunk of it does. I would know… all of my friends hate you, just because of who you are"

"look who's being cocky now. Since when are you friends with half the school?"

"since they realized they don't fit into the popular crowd. Me and my friends don't exclude people just because of who they are or what they look like. We accept everyone"

"yeah, everyone but the popular kids." Spencer says. "maybe you should get off your high horse just for a second and stop judging people. You are just like me. You judge people on how they look, who they hang out with and their popularity status"

"that's not true."

"oh really? What if Madison wanted to be your friend too, would you let her?"

"no"

"exactly" she says.

"oh please, I wouldn't hang out with Madison. She's a bitch" and she knows I'm right.

"fine, what about any of the other cheerleaders? What if they decided to be your friend?"

"I couldn't trust them. Once you're popular it's almost impossible to become unpopular."

"and how would you know that?" Spencer asks me.

"…because it happened to me" I snarl back. I thought she would have known that.

"what?" she asks confusedly.

"how long have you been going to this school?" I ask curiously.

"since this year" she answers. That's why.

"okay, you have to understand something here, _Carlin_. Do not judge me because you _think _you know me, because you know nothing about me" I say standing up from my seat.

"and you think you know everything about me?" she asks.

"not everything, but I do know something that could take you out of your popular crowd faster than you can say 'Ashley Davies'" I tell her. And I can see the fear creep into her eyes.

"…and what is that?" she asks fearfully, but tries her best not to show it.

"it's the same thing that made me unpopular" I say. "you know, once upon a time I was you. I was the popular girl. I was Madison's best friend. I had everything a person could want. I was hot, rich, popular, dating the cutest guy in school… the list just goes on"

"then what happened?"

"then I told people I liked girls, not boys. The next day I was out of the crowd and hanging with the people who didn't care who I liked as long as I wasn't a bitch to them" AKA my current friends.

"all this because you liked girls?"

"yeah, so you better watch who you piss off, because you don't know the kind of shit they have against you"


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Why do we do this to each other

**Chapter 3: Why do we do this to each other?**

"_yeah, so you better watch who you piss off, because you don't know the kind of shit they have against you" I say._

"is that supposed to be a threat?" Spencer asks, taking a step closer to me in this tiny closet.

"I wouldn't call it a threat… more of a warning"

"well…" could it be? Is _the_ Spencer Carlin stumped on a come back line.

"don't worry, cheerleader." I snarl. "I've been sworn to secrecy" I say taking a seat back down on the stool.

"Meg" she concludes and I give the smallest of nods. "…thank you" she says awkwardly.

"I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for her." I say avoiding her blue eyes.

"… I hope you don't expect me to be nice to you or anything" she says reverting back to her normal bitchy self.

"don't worry. I don't expect anything of you" I say earning a scoff out of her.

"you know. Just for a few seconds would it kill you to be nice?"

"I don't know. But I'm not really willing to try, especially not over you"

…………

The funny thing about human nature is through out history there has always been a war, and there will always be a war. Sometimes I think constant fighting and the struggle not to fight is what keeps this human race going. You know, survival of the fittest kind of thing. No one truly knows why we fight. I mean, if you think about it you have to ask yourself a few questions… why do we get into fights? Because it's human nature… why do we resort to human nature? Because we get angry… why do we get angry? Because we get into a fights. It's a vicious circle, really. So I guess by now it's safe to say that we fight because it's what we were born to do.

There's no stopping it and there's no changing it.

……………

After about an hour we finished cleaning up this closet. Well technically Spencer did more, and she did it without giving me any shit. I guess the whole me keeping her secret thing made her think she owed me something.

"alright, let's get the hell out of here" she says looking down at her watch. "shit, it's already 4:25" she mutters to herself.

"what?!" I ask, grabbing her wrist to look at her watch. You know… just in case she can't tell time. Damn, she's right. I'm so late right now.

We quickly get out of the closet and I lock the door behind us. I don't have time to go see Mr. Daniels. Instead I pick up my bag from outside the door and take off in the direction of the parking lot.

"there you are!" Kyla yells as she stands up straight from leaning on my car.

"what ever. Get in" I say unlocking the car with the remote. We get in and within seconds the car is started up and put in gear. I nearly speed out of the parking lot, but just as I'm leaving I see Kyla wave to someone. It's Spencer. I look at her through the windshield, and I don't know if it's just me or what, but I think she's staring at me.

Whatever. I shake off the feeling and speed down the streets and around a few corners, arriving at our next destination.

"where were you?" Kyla asks, from the passenger seat.

"detention. It ran late" I tell her, as I pull into another school's parking lot.

"ooh Mac's going to kill you" she says with a smirk.

"shut up" I say spotting the teenage girl standing outside of the school doors all by herself. I get out of the car and go to meet my very pissed off girlfriend.

"hey babe, I'm so sorry I'm late" I go in to kiss her on the cheek, but I can tell she is pissed.

"where were you? You were supposed to be here like half an hour ago!" she yells at me.

"I know, I'm sorry, some bitch at school got me in detention and I lost track of time" I explain to her.

So let me fill you in here, this is Mackenzie, my girlfriend, AKA Mac. She goes to an all girl's school about 10 minutes away from my school, plus she's a cheerleader. A hot cheerleader, but the cool kind. She is also currently the girl I love. And every day after school I'm supposed to pick her, just cause that's the kind of girlfriend I am.

"do you forgive me?" I ask as I pick up her bag for her off the ground and put it around my shoulder.

"was the girl hot?" she asks.

"she ain't got nothing on you babe" I say with a smile and she soon cracks her own smile.

"good answer" she says leaning in to give me a quick kiss on the lips. We walk over to the car and I open the passenger door for her. Kyla's already climbed into the back seat, as usual. I throw Mac's bag back at Kyla to put beside her while Mac gets into the car. I close the door for her and go around to my side of the car.

"Kyla" Mac says to her.

"Mackenzie" Kyla says in the same tone. Okay so my sister doesn't like my girlfriend and my girlfriend doesn't like my sister. What ever. I've had my girlfriend longer than I have had my sister. She showed up at my dad's wake with my mom, it was weird but understandable.

"how's the almost head cheerleader?" Mac teases Kyla, seeing how she's still in her cheerleading uniform. Okay, so remember Aiden? The guy who can be apart of both the popular and unpopular? Yeah, well one of the reasons that this is allowed is because he's one of my best friends and he's also my sister's boyfriend. So since my sister is a popular girl and I'm not, it works out for him.

"how's being a lesbian?" Kyla snaps back.

"hey, pipe down back there" I say, since I'm technically also into girls.

"what ever" Kyla gives up in a huff. We drive down to Mac's house and drop her off just as usual. Kyla throws her bag at her in hopes of getting rid of her faster and Mac walks around the car to say goodbye to me at my window.

"call me later?" I ask as she gives me a small kiss.

"actually me and some friends from school are going out to the movies, so I'll call you tomorrow?" she asks.

"your girlfriend can't come along?" I ask.

"Ash…" see this is where it gets complicated. She's my girlfriend, I'm hers. We've been dating for about a year now and she still hasn't told any of her friends that she likes girls, not guys. And I know, it's stupid right? I mean I could have any girl I wanted but I choose one who is still in the closet. It's fucked up, I know.

"forget it. I've got to go. Call me when you have time for a girlfriend" I say and I drive off still angry. And to think she was the one who was angry when I showed up, but she certainly wasn't angry when I left.

"you know, I don't know why you date her. She's not that great of a girlfriend" Kyla says to me, still in the back seat.

"shut up Kyla, I don't comment on your love life"

"what ever. So what did you do to land yourself in detention?" Kyla asks.

"Spencer Carlin was staring at me last period and I didn't like it"

"oh no, not staring!" Kyla says sarcastically.

"I confronted her and the teacher made us clean out some stupid closet" I say.

"ever think you and Spencer have some sort of sexual tension thing going on?" Kyla asks, poking her head between the seats.

"what?! No! first of all, Spencer Carlin's a bitch, second of all, I have a girlfriend, third of all… Spencer Carlin is a bitch!"

"okay, calm down there tiger, I was just joking."

"you know, I don't even know why you're friends with her"

"hey, she's not as bad as you think she is? Just because you guys are complete opposites doesn't mean you have to hate each other."

"in high school you do, especially when everyone else sees it that way"

"to tell you the truth, she's probably a lot more like you than you think…"

"yeah right" I scoff back.

"no, well think about it. You both kind of lead two groups in the school, people look up to you, I know I see people always talking to her and bothering her about their own needs. Come to think of it, you two probably have more in common than you and Mac do, except for the gay part…" oh if she only knew.

Do you really think she's a lot like me? I mean so what if we're both leaders of our own groups? They are two very different groups, opposites even. There's no chance that we could have things in common. It's just unthinkable…

Right?

"shut up Kyla, I don't want to talk about Spencer Carlin anymore" Not with Kyla anyways.

As soon as we got home I ditched Kyla at the front door and headed straight up to my room. I only put up with her because I have to, other than that I don't usually have much to do with her. When I get to my room I immediately turn on the radio to any random station, toss my shoulder back with what ever books I brought home in the corner, and took my phone out as I flopped down onto my bed.

Without hesitation I used speed dial to call the number one girl on my phone… and it's not Mac.

"hey Ash" Meg answers.

"hey, what's up?"

"just listening to music. What about you?"

"nothing. Mind if I ask you a question about Spencer Carlin?" I ask quickly. Small talks not really my thing.

"…"

"Meg?"

"… yeah I'm here. Uh, what did you want to know?" she says hesitantly.

"did you two have a lot in common when you, you know, went out?" I ask quietly. Who knows if Kyla's on the other side of that door?

"um, yeah sure I guess. I mean we probably wouldn't have dated as long as we did if we didn't have things in common."

"like what?"

"what's with all the questions?" she asks, trying to change the subject.

"just a little blackmail" I reply jokingly.

"Ashley…"

"I'm kidding Meg, I just realized I never knew too much about your 'relationship' with her, _if you could even call it that…_" I mutter the last part.

"screw you, Ashley. At least I haven't been dating a girl who's been in the closet for a whole _year_" Megan yells at me through the phone.

"well at least I didn't date my best friends worst fucking enemy!" I yell back.

"oh get over it Ashley! Like you haven't screwed up before"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"it means we all know you've had your fair share of drunken one night stands, _while_ you were dating Mac!"

"hey! Any time I had sex with a girl other than Mac while we were dating was only if we were broken up!"

"broken up? you guys don't break up for more than 12 hours and you know it!"

"you know, for someone who knows a pretty dark secret about you, you'd think you'd try _not_ to piss them off!" I yell and hang up the phone only to throw it across the room and onto my couch. Fuck, I hate when I fight with Meg, it always lasts longer than any fight I have with Mac, that's for sure.

So let's just go over this again to make sure I understand correctly. I'm pissed at my so called girlfriend, I'm pissed at my best friend, and I can pretty much guarantee you Kyla and Aiden are making out right now. So it all leads me to one question… Who do I turn to now?

………

I woke up the next morning still pissed at two of most important people to me right now and I hate it. Fuck, Mac didn't even call me last night. What ever, she can find her own ride home.

After taking an hour to get ready I'm grabbing a quick breakfast and waiting for Kyla to hurry up.

"Ky, move your ass!" I yell into the house.

"one sec" she says back from a room. Which room, I'm not sure.

Within a couple of minutes she's at the front door with me and we're getting into my convertible. If I didn't drive this thing she'd probably get a ride with her boyfriend. But she prefers convertibles over motor bikes any day. It's a safety thing. I'd feel the same way if I were her.

Now instead of heading straight to school I make a pit stop at Starbucks and pick something up. I guess coffee always makes me feel more calm. We finally arrive at school, with a few minutes to spare might I add, and I pull into an open parking spot, surprisingly close to school, only to find a cheerleader standing in my way, talking with her other cheerleader friends. I'm half way into the spot and they still don't move. So in order to give them a little boost I honk my horn for all to hear and see.

"wanna move, Duarte?" I yell. She turns around and gives me a scoff and walks away with her friends to avoid being run over. I turn to my right to see Kyla slouch down in her seat. Her problem not mine. I'm about to get out of the car when I see Spencer and Megan talking to each other again around the corner where no one can see them. They're both looking scared shitless, well I wonder what's that all about… not like I don't already know.

Never underestimate me.

They both manage to look over at me at the same time, and I take this opportunity to get out of my car and act like none of this affects me. Because it doesn't. You know how people think I'm a bitch?

Well it's partly because I am.

I walk over to the quad to join the rest of my friends and where we hang out, they all give me a wave or a nod in the guy's cases. I throw my bag down without a word and take a seat with them.

"so what's with you and Meg?" Steph asks.

"nothing" I reply, not making eye contact.

"yeah, that's why she's not attached to your hip" Charlie states.

"look, I don't want to talk about it. She started bitching at me last night and I didn't exactly appreciate it" I tell them, not actually giving them any details. Okay, so I know I threatened to tell everyone Meg's secret, or should I say Spencer's secret, but I promised I wouldn't. I'm not that much of a bitch. I take a sip of my still hot coffee and watch as Meg walks over to me and Spencer's already rejoined the cheerleaders and the popular.

"what?" I snap at Meg as I see her stand in front of me expectantly. She gives the nod to our friends. You know the nod that says 'get lost'. Well they all silently pack up and leave, allowing us to talk. She takes a seat beside me and I lean back onto the table and she follows in suit.

"I never thought we'd let a girl get between us" she says. On the inside I'm smiling, but I don't want to show her that just yet.

"Which one?" I ask making her smile as well.

"look, I know you asked what we had in common and the truth is we didn't have that much in common, but there were some things. But I'm just not ready to talk about it. And I'm not sure I ever will be." Meg explains to me.

"just answer me one thing…" I start, and don't even wait for answer. "when you started dating her, did you ever think about me and what it would do to me and our friendship?"

"… constantly. When we started going out I was so scared of what you would think, but I liked her so much, and I thought for just a second maybe I could love this girl, and maybe it would all be worth it. But in the end, it turns out we weren't in love and it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth losing my best friend over"

"why did you break up?" I ask hoping to get more answers out of her. But her eyes fall to her hands in her lap and I can tell I'm not getting any more information. "I'm sorry, about last night. I don't know anything about what you had with her, I shouldn't have said the things I did"

"I'm sorry too, I didn't mean to attack you and Mac, it was pretty low of me"

"… it's alright, we're known to be bitches, we've got to live up to our reputations some how" I say with a smile as I pat her on the leg.

She looks up at me and smiles, but then just for a second I see her eyes flicker passed mine. I turn around to see none other than Spencer Carlin staring back at us.

"oh you've got to be kidding me!" I throw my hands up. "you only did this for her? She told you to fix things didn't she?!" I ask angrily.

"no, _I_ wanted to fix things" Megan says, trying not to raise her voice in avoidance of creating a scene.

"Meg, she's only trying to save _her_ ass! I'd say don't fall into her traps but it looks like you already have."

"this isn't about her!"

"you keep telling yourself that, but you know deep down inside she's got you stringed along like a puppet, just like all of her other friends. Stop thinking about what she wants and think about what's better for you, because she's not worth it" I say leaning in close. I grab my bag and whip off in the other direction, shooting Spencer daggers with my eyes as I walk passed her.

Like I said, human nature is the force that pushes us to our limits. And I don't know how long I can last until my human nature turns into pure anger. But what I do know is there's no stopping it… and there's no changing it.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Why do we doubt love

**Chapter 4: Why do we doubt love?**

Why do we doubt love? Is it because we are so surprised that someone in the world could actually love us? Is it because we're actually afraid to come to the terms of a relationship? What is it about love that we feel just can't be right? Sometimes I think there is a reason to doubt love, but then I just tell myself if someone is willing to say they love me, then there is no reason to doubt it.

By last period I had successfully avoided both Megan and Spencer, but to my dismay the blonde was in my last period class. Doesn't this girl ever skip? Why didn't I just skip? Whatever.

I'm sitting at the back of the class room, not paying attention as usual when I feel something hit my head. What the hell? I look down to the floor to see a scrunched up ball of paper. I look around to see Spencer and Madison both snickering in my direction. They're not even worth it. Out of the corner of my eye I see Spencer get another piece of paper and throw it at my head when the teacher isn't looking.

This is getting annoying now. But I suppress my anger. That and I flip her off.

Within seconds I feel another ball of paper hit me and this is where my short temper gets set up. I stand up out of my chair, already creating a scene.

"what the hell is your problem?" I yell, not even caring if I am in class.

"you're my problem" Spencer says as she gets out of her chair only to stand up to me. "bitch" she adds in.

"fuck you!" I yell back, almost ready to start a fight when I'm held back by my friends and she's held back by hers.

"Carlin, Davies! One week's detention" Mr. Daniels yells at us. Oh come on! "I think these chalk boards could use a nice scrub down." I swear this is child labour.

"what? Sir! That's so not fair! She was throwing stuff at my head!" I yell in my defence.

"oh and I suppose she also made you swear at her too?" okay, that was kind of my fault.

"fine" I mutter and take a seat. I see Spencer sit back down without a fight and with a satisfied smirk on her face. Why do I get the feeling she planned this?

…………

After class everyone else cleared out leaving me alone with Spencer and Mr. Daniels. I quickly finished texting one of my friends before the torture started, I always have a back up plan.

"well girls, you know the drill" he says grabbing a couple of buckets of water from the janitor. "I'll be back later" he says walking out the door with an all too happy smile.

"well since you got us into this mess you can do all the work, again" I say taking a seat in Mr. Daniel's chair at the head of the class room. She stands there with her arms crossed waiting expectantly. For what, I'm not exactly sure.

Oh, wait. "oh this isn't because of what happened this morning is it? Because I've got better shit to do than sit in detention with you. You could have just talked to me"

"in public? Yeah right" she scoffs.

"well thanks to you and your fear of being seen in public talking to me you've gotten us a detention for the next week."

"yeah, _that_ I didn't really anticipate on happening"

"alright, well…?" I ask and she gives me this WTF face back. "are you going to talk to me about it or what? Because you better ask now before time's up" I say pointing to the clock on the wall that's directly above my head.

"right." She finally gets back into it. "look, I don't know what happened between you and Megan, but she's your best friend"

"oh fuck that, you're just saying that so I won't tell anyone about your stupid secret" how selfish can you be?

"look, I'm not the bitch you think I am, despite what you think I do believe that a friendship is important. Now that being said, you're not going to say shit about my secret because I've got stuff against you"

"you're bluffing" I say without hesitation.

"am I?" she asks as she walks over and takes a seat on the desk right in front of me, no more than a foot away. "what's the name of your girlfriend again? Mackenzie King?" how does she know about her?

"she has nothing to do with this" I state.

"hm, well I think she does now. She goes to a Catholic school doesn't she?" so what? "I'd hate to see what would happen to her in a school full of homophobes if someone was to, oh I don't know, let it accidentally slip that she's gay"

"you stay the fuck away from her!" I know I'm pissed at Mac, but I still love her and I would never let her get hurt like that. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Want to know why? "you don't have the guts to do anything like that anyway" I say, standing up and leaning in closer to Spencer. I place a hand on either side of her on the desk so that I'm leaning in close.

"why do you say that?"

"because you and I both know that you wouldn't even risk your reputation to torture someone else. We both know you care about yourself more than anyone else." I say quietly and she knows I'm right.

"are you willing to bet your girlfriend's social status for that?"

"I don't have to" I say with a smirk, as I inch even closer to her face.

"and why is that?" she asks with a husky voice. I do believe she's playing into my plan.

"because…" I whisper right before I lean in to press my lips down to hers. Oh kill me now. I wait for a few seconds until I hear the click. And as soon as I do we both pull back and turn to the person in the doorway. "oh hey Charlie, perfect timing" I say with a smile as he too smiles down at his phone with a picture of me and her kissing. That was hard, but it'll work out in the end.

"what was that? Give me that phone!" Spencer yells as she tries to get Charlie's phone. But she's too short. I'm glad Charlie's 6'1. "give me the phone!" she yells even louder as she knees him in the groin. He tosses the phone to me, before he falls to the floor in pain. I shut the phone and put it down my pants before she can even try to take it back.

"still want it?" I ask with a smirk.

"what the fuck was that?" she asks angrily.

"that… would be a picture of you kissing a girl" I say with a shrug. "no big deal. Oh wait, I forgot, you're still not out. Oops!" I say fakely. "okay, so here's the deal blondie, you're going to stay the hell away from my girlfriend and this picture doesn't get out. I don't know how it would look if the whole school found out you kissed Ashley Davies, but I'm thinking not good"

"you're a bitch"

"thank you" I say with a conceding smile. "I'd stick around but I have places to go and people to see, and not to mention pictures to upload" I say as I take the phone out of my pants. "so I expect these blackboards to be spotless tomorrow. Oh and if Mr. Daniels asks you'll tell him an emergency came up and I had to go home."

"and what if I don't?" she asks.

"well try it and we'll find out" I say walking out with Charlie. I know she won't dare say anything because she knows I have not only one thing on her, but two. So she's pretty much backed herself into a corner. Not my problem.

In the mean time I toss Charlie his phone back and give him a high five. "send me that picture. And thanks Charlie"

"no prob Ash, you're lucky you text me at the end of class. So I take it this picture is for black mail?"

"oh, completely, but don't tell anyone, and I mean _anyone_. Especially Megan. I don't really plan on letting this get out. It's only for scaring purposes"

"gotchya" he says with a smile. I can always trust me followers, mainly because they have no one else to follow. "… so was it good?"

……………

I go out to the parking lot after Charlie and I separated to see Kyla once again waiting for me at my car.

"detention?" she asks as I unlock the car and we both get in.

"not anymore" I smirk at her.

"and what does that mean?"

"it means that Spencer Carlin probably won't be bothering me too much anymore"

"Ashley, what did you do?!"

"calm down, I didn't threaten her or anything… I just made sure she wouldn't bother me anymore"

"I swear to god, if you did anything to jeopardize my social status with my friends I will hurt you!"

"calm down, you're precious reputation is safe" I reassure her.

We drive back to our house, only for me to drop her off at the front door.

"aren't you coming in?"

"nope, I've got to see a certain girlfriend of mine" I see her sigh in front of me when I tell her about Mac. "come on Ky, you know I love her, don't act like that"

"what ever Ash, one day you're going to find out that she's not for you. Just wait and see"

"thanks for the support" I say sarcastically and drive out of my driveway. Instead of going to her school, I drive down to her house. I park on the side of the road and run across the lawn straight to the door. Her parents hate when I walk on the lawn. Not to mention they're not too fond of me either.

I knock on the door a couple of times only to be greeted by Mac's stay at home mom.

"hi Mrs. King, is Mackenzie home?" I ask. I see her look me up and down, like usual, and then gives me her best fake smile.

"sure, she's in her room" she says, hesitantly letting me walk passed her and through her house.

I head up to her room, knocking lightly and entering right afterwards. I enter the room only to find her sitting at her computer with head phones in. She didn't hear me. I close the door silently and walk up behind her.

Oh the possibilities.

I walk up behind her and kiss her lightly on the back of the neck. She quickly jerks her head back in shock of the kiss and her head hits me directly in the nose.

"fuck!" I yell clutching my nose for dear life. No blood, I'm okay. Just pain.

"oh shit, sorry Ash" she says turning around and takes out the headphones. I take a seat back on her bed as she comes over to me and caressing my cheek for support.

"miss me?" I ask.

"you know it" she says taking a seat on the bed to sit beside me.

"sorry about the other day" I apologize… even though it totally wasn't my fault.

"it's okay" she accepts my apology even though it's her fault. But I love this girl, so I let it slide.

"you want to go back to my place for a little privacy?" I ask placing my hand on her leg.

"um, actually I kind of made plans… I'm really sorry, but I promised a couple of friends I'd hit the mall with them" right, how could I forget, friends trump girlfriend in this relationship. At least from her point of view.

"alright" I sigh. "I guess I'll pick you up from school tomorrow then?"

"yeah, that sounds perfect, thanks Ash!" she says cheerfully, like nothing affects me. You'd think after a year she'd be able to read me.

"okay well I might be a little late"

"what ever"

"alright, well give me a kiss and I'll see you later…" I say leaning down. She gives me a quick kiss on the lips and goes straight back to her computer.

"I love you" I say on my way out.

"love you too" she mutters carelessly.

Maybe Kyla was right… maybe we're not supposed to be together. But until that "maybe" becomes absolute, I'll stick with my girlfriend that I love, and that loves me back.

But sometimes I think the reason I doubt love… is because there _is_ a reason to.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Why is she so addictive

**Chapter 5: Why is she so addictive?**

**Hey everybody, thanks for the amazing reviews I loved every single one of them. Special shout out to **Spashley20** for noticing my intro&end in the last chapter. I wanted to try something new and worked really hard at it. Also a quick shout out to **giveusakiss82**, you made me laugh. So without further ado, I bring you chap5.**

We've all heard the saying "one person _can_ make a difference", whether it's your mom, dad, teacher, the random hobo on Gerard street… someone always finds the need to say it. But I have yet to believe it. I mean in the vote to elect our next president, one vote isn't going to make a difference. In a decision whether or not to put a swimming pool on the roof of our school, one person is not going to make a difference. In a vote to get rid of the yellow starburst in that big bag of candy, one vote isn't going to make a difference. So far nothing has lead me to believe that one person can make a difference in something so big…

I pull into school the next day feeling a little better, I mean I have Spencer Carlin off my back, I have my girlfriend back, things are looking pretty good. I step out of the car and so far no Madison yet. Wow this day is going a lot better than I thought it would be. But it feels like something's missing.

"Ashley Davies you are in so much trouble" I hear a voice from behind me. Shit, I forgot about Meg. I'm still kind of mad at her though, and I can tell she's pissed.

I turn around to face none other than my best friend.

"Meg" I state, as I continue walking in the direction of my class.

"Ashley, can I talk to you?" she asks sternly.

"'bout what?"

"You-know-who told me what you did yesterday!" oh, you know… I didn't really anticipate on Spencer telling Megan, that was probably a mistake on my part.

"… I don't know what you're talking about" I say innocently. Without another word she pulls me into an empty hallway so we can talk together.

"What the fuck Ashley?! You black mail her with a picture of you two kissing? What are you trying to do?"

"did she also tell you she threatened to out my girlfriend to her entire catholic school?" I ask back and I see Megan freeze. That's an obvious no. "yeah, didn't think so. Next time you need to think about what the other person did, not what _I_ did. You know I don't start shit. I only bitch when I'm bitched at"

"well you didn't have to create physical evidence!"

"Why not? I couldn't use your little secret to my advantage so I created my own. Now you don't have to worry about dating your best friend's enemy, because now it looked like I dated my enemy"

"would you listen to yourself?! You know it'll hurt your reputation just as much as my secret would"

"on the contrary my dear Megan, if I spin it correctly I can just say I was able to swindle the most popular girl in school into kissing me. In no way does that hurt my reputation" I say smartly. I may be a bitch, but I'm a smart bitch. I finish with a smirk as I try to walk away and carry on with my life.

"Ashley don't do this…" she says gripping my arm. I turn around to see her best sad face. She knows I fall for it every time. It's just so damn sad. I let out a sigh and walk back over to her.

"okay look, I won't do anything, just promise me something…"

"what?"

"drop her, get away from her and just ignore her. I don't want to hear about her or your relationship with her ever again. As far as we're concerned, you never dated her, you never even liked her. You do all that and I'll forget about everything, it'll be like this whole relationship never happened… deal?"

"… deal" she replies softly.

"okay good, I'll talk to Spencer after class and tell her the deal. Then we can finally just move on, okay?"

"yeah…" she replies quietly I give her a smile and hold out my hand for her to take. She slips her hand into mine and we walk towards class.

Now everything's back to normal.

………

By the end of the day I felt as if someone was watching me. And there was. During last period I could feel the weight of two piercing blue eyes on me the entire time. But today it seemed a little different. She was no longer staring for teasing purposes. I don't think Madison even realized Spencer was staring at me, but I did.

By the end of class I decided to stick around for the detention so I could deal with this thing once and for all. When the bell rang the other students cleared out, and Spencer and I packed up, but didn't leave.

"well ladies, day two of detention, what shall we do? Oh I know! I believe Mrs. Ryerson said she needed her boards washed as well" he says with a smirk. He enjoys this way too much.

We pick up a couple of buckets on our way out of the room and head down to Mrs. Ryerson's room. Without even knocking she sees us and smiles.

"well I'll leave you girls to it then" she says and walks out of the room. I have no idea where these teachers go all the time but they just seem to leave.

"… well you can leave now" Spencer says as she gets started on one of the boards.

"before I do I wanted to talk to you about something…" I start and put the bucket down by my feet.

"what?"

"look, I was talking to Megan this morning and we've come to a decision. I'm willing to let everything go as long as you do too. Sort of a truce. But the catch is you act like you and Megan never even dated, even to Meg herself. I'm willing to forget the black mail and delete the picture if you leave Megan and my girlfriend alone. Do we have a deal?"

"and to think, I was having so much fun coming up with ways to black mail you back…"

"what ever. Do we have a deal or not?"

"I don't know" she shrugs as her focus remains on the black board.

"what do you mean 'I don't know'? I give you the perfect opportunity to end all of this and you say you don't know?"

"well what if I don't want to let it go?" she asks, still washing the board. She acts like we're talking about our favourite band or something. Does she not realize the impact this conversation could have between us in the future?

"why wouldn't you want to?" I ask, now fairly intrigued by her response. She drops the sponge into the bucket from waist height and turns around to face me. She slowly walks over without a word, but with a smile on her face.

"what if I told you that instead of forgetting everything that I wanted to remember it all?" huh?

"what does that mean?" I ask at the risk of sounding dumb.

"what if I really did want to do this to you…?" she asks, slowly leaning in and pressing her lips to mine. I didn't expect that one, but her lips… _oh her lips._

I pull back quickly only to stare back into those true blue eyes of hers. Instead of saying anything I lean back down and start kissing her back. This is so wrong, but I can't help but think it feels so right. On one hand she's my worst enemy… supposedly, she had a relationship my best friend… allegedly, and I have a girlfriend that loves me back… hopefully. But all I can think about is how her long blonde hair smells, how her lips taste only of strawberry lip gloss, how her body smells of the high class perfume, how her smooth hands are lightly touching my cheek and just how _addictive_ this girl can be.

But maybe that's her plan. To make me addicted to her. Hell, that's probably what she did to Meg. Made her fall for her with just one kiss – or in my case two. Maybe this is all just a plan to make me want her so much that I can't hurt her. Want her so much that I would do anything for her, or in my case, not do anything _to_ her.

But then again there's always that other maybe.

The maybe that says _maybe_ she does really like me, _maybe_ this is so wrong, but she's wanted it all along. _Maybe_ she was just too afraid to do anything because of who she is and what she's done.

_Maybe_ she really does want this as much as I do.

I feel her hand leave my cheek and both of her hands rub the outside of my thighs up and down lightly. _Maybe_ it was a mistake wearing a skirt as I run out the door and to my car. I need to get away.

Because when things start feeling real it usually means they are. And when things start feeling real with Spencer Carlin, my worst enemy, things just can't turn out right. It's just the way it is.

………………

I get in my car and drive straight to Mac's school. Just as I'm pulling up to her I see her wave bye to her friends and she starts walking over to me. I look at my reflection in the mirror and I see nothing but smeared lip gloss everywhere around my mouth.

"fuck…" I mutter to my self as I quickly try to wipe it away before Mac can see.

"hey ash" she says getting into my car.

"hey you… how was your day?"

"fine" she replies, waiting for me to get to driving. Well thanks for asking me. The more I spend time with my girlfriend, the less I feel like we belong with each other.

"So… Meg and I aren't fighting anymore" I try to start a conversation.

"who?" that's nice. Really. She doesn't even know my best friend's name.

"Megan. My best friend"

"right. I don't like her. She's had a crush on you for forever" Mac says.

"no she hasn't" I reply. "we're just close friends"

"too close if you ask me"

"well I didn't ask you." I say a little angry. Nothing a few minutes of no talking couldn't fix.

After the silent ride home Mac gave me a kiss on the cheek and left me alone in my car. After being together for a year you'd think we'd be closer, I mean Meg and I are probably closer than me and Mac.

Well, taking my mind off my distant girlfriend for a second I focus back on something I've been trying to forget for a while now. Spencer Carlin. I don't know what it is about her but I have so many questions. The problem is I have no one to ask. I told Meg I wanted to drop it, I certainly don't want to tell any of my followers about it, Kyla wouldn't believe me and if she did the news would be out within minutes, and well… Mac's just out of the question being my girlfriend and all.

So that only leaves one person.

…………

After making a quick stop at a telephone booth and getting the address I drive around a little until I finally find the place. The Carlin residence. It's not as big as I thought it would be. Usually the popular kids are all grossly rich, not unlike myself, but Spencer's house seems like your average house.

I park my convertible out on the curb and walk over to the house, keys in hand – in case I need a quick getaway, and I knock on the wooden door. Within seconds the door slowly swings open and a tall blonde answers the door, but not Spencer.

"hi, can I help you?" she asks.

"yeah, um hi, is Spencer home?" I ask and she smiles at me. One of those smiles where she's hinting towards something, but I have no idea what.

"sure, come on in." She says letting me in through the door way. "Spencer!" she calls up the stairs. As we stand here in awkward silence waiting for Spencer I feel like her mom is watching me. In fact I see her look me up and down. And most parents' responses would be thinking that I'm some sort of bad influence, but Mrs. Carlin just smiles at me.

"I'm Paula Carlin, by the way, Spencer's mom" She says extending her hand for me to take. I shift my keys to my other hand so I can shake hers.

"Ashley Davies, it's nice to meet you Mrs. Carlin" I say politely. Being unpopular doesn't mean I don't have manners.

When Spencer finally comes down the stairs she freezes as she sees me, then slowly walks down the rest of the way. "Ashley?" she asks.

"hi" I say and I see Spencer look at her mom then back at me. I wonder how long it'll take for her to catch the hint.

"… oh!" there we go. "I'll give you two some time alone. Spencer why don't you take _Ashley _to your room and I'll bring you guys some snacks"

"…okay" Spencer replies hesitantly.

"oh and Spencer?" Paula says causing us to pause on the stairs. "keep the door open" she whispers, but I can still hear. Without another word we continue our venture up the stairs and to Spencer's room.

"what are you doing here Ashley?" Spencer asks me as I look around her room.

"I, uh… I…" I'm about to explain, but then something occurs to me. "you know, if I didn't know any better I'd say your mom knows about your little secret" I say and I see Spencer avoid eye contact and twiddles with her fingers. Sure fire signs which indicates just how right I am. "oh my god! She does, doesn't she?!" I realize.

"that's none of your business" Spencer snaps back as she takes a seat on the bed.

"wow, that's a new one…"

"what is?"

"I've met girls who are only out to themselves, girls who are only out to their friends, and girls who are only out to their girlfriends, but never have I met a girl who is only out to her family and not her friends." I tell her.

"dare to be different, right?" she asks hypothetically.

"so when did you tell her?"

"why are you here Ashley?" she repeats her question, looking up at me from the bed.

"well I think you know why I'm here. It has something to do with you and me being connected at the lips today in detention."

"I don't know what you're talking about" she says innocently. Are you kidding me?

"Spencer, we were both there, there's no point in lying about what happened. There's a very small chance that you're going to convince me I'm insane and that it didn't actually happen." I tell her back.

"okay, well what do you want me to do?" she asks getting frustrated and standing up from her bed.

"what do I want you to do? Spencer, I want you to go back in time and never kiss me, I want you to go back and stop torturing me. I want you to go back, and never date Meg!" I say loudly. I don't care who's listening.

"well I can't do that now, can I?!" she asks hypothetically. "I can't go back and change anything. And it wouldn't matter if I could…" she says walking closer to me.

"why is that?" I ask as I lean back and cross my arms.

"because…" she starts but doesn't finish as she leans over and starts kissing me. She pins me against her desk and I can feel her hands on my waist again. But it's now it occurs to me that I'm kissing her back. Damn her. I don't know what it is about her, but I've said it before and I'll say it again. This girl is addictive. But there is still something burning in my mind.

I push her over to the bed and lay down on top of her as we continue to make out. But I just can't take it anymore. Ever feel like you have one thought on your mind and you just can't shake it no matter how hard you try? I pull back for a second and now she's pinned down and can't move.

"why did you and Meg break up?" I ask and I see her face freeze. Her breaths are ragged, and I can tell she's trying to come up with a lie in her head, but she can't. Just as she's about to answer my question a quick knock comes from the door and it's pushed open. We quickly jump apart and stand a few feet away from each other. Yeah, like that doesn't look obvious. Spencer's mom is standing in the door with a tray of carrots and dip.

"hi girls" she says slowly, knowing what she walked in on.

"hi Mrs. C" I reply with a smile, since Spencer can't seem to get a grasp on her words just yet.

"just thought I'd make you guys a little treat" she says and puts the tray down on the dresser beside the door.

"thank you" I say and watch as she shuts the door behind her, but not all the way. I let out a sigh of relief and take a seat on her bed. She finally looks at me but still doesn't know what to say.

"are you going to answer my question or not?"

"we had our differences" she says and quickly straddles my legs, wanting to go again. Without giving me time to get angry at her stupid response she starts kissing me neck, and I've seemed to have lost my voice.

"Sp-Spencer" I manage to say, even though I can feel her nibbling on my ear.

"yes?" she whispers in my ear giving me chills down my spine. God, this is so wrong.

"why did you do it?" I ask again. She goes from kissing my ear, back down to my neck, across my cheek and back to my lips where I kiss her back again.

"you really want to know?" she whispers in a sexy tone.

"mhm" I reply, can't speak. Come back later.

"… it was because of you" she whispers and goes back to kissing me.

One person _can_ make a difference. I never believed that saying until now.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Why do I have to choose

**Chapter 6: Why do I have to choose?**

**Hey so I decided to update early because I got sooo many reviews from the last chapter. It was amazing. So as your reward here is the next update!**

_Choices define our lives. Any and all choices make some sort of impact. Maybe choosing a college will impact what future you have. Maybe choosing what ice cream to have after dinner will impact what kind of dreams you have. Or maybe choosing what girl to love will impact your sanity. Choices affect us everyday whether we like it or not. Some are easy, others… aren't._

"… it was because of you" she says and goes back to kissing me. Wait, what? I pull back from her and make her stop kissing me.

"what?" I ask and she knows I'm serious now. She slides off me and instead of sitting she just stands in front of me.

"you heard me" she states, now annoyed that she isn't getting some. Well too - _the fuck_ - bad.

"who broke up with who? And why?"

"you seem to be pretty close with Meg, why don't you go and ask her" she snaps at me. Okay, wow. Scary blonde chick - aiming anger this way.

"hey, all I want is some answers here, because Megan never told me anything, all I know is that one day she came to me crying and told me she was dating you."

"she didn't say anything else?" Spencer asks, softening her eyes a little.

"no"

"oh…"

"so are you going to fill me in or am I just going to be left in the dark here?" I ask.

"darkness" Spencer answers. I kind of figured.

So I left after that. I figured if she's not going to tell me now I could get it out of her another time. Until then I'm not going to let her use me. So I went home and just fell down on my bed. I think I need to quality Ashley time to think about everything.

Okay so the way I look at it, this thing could have played out two ways. One, Spencer and Meg were dating, Spencer loved me, but dated Meg for some reason, eventually broke up with her, and now she's trying to get with me. Or two, Meg loves me, just like Mac thinks, and broke up with Spencer when they were dating. And now Spencer is trying to get back at her for dumping her by trying to get with me.

Either way, both situations are fucked up.

And either way I have no idea what to do. In situation one I could never date my worst enemy, and I could never date my best friend's ex. Right? Not to mention I've already got a girlfriend. Who by the way I haven't spoken to in forever. She never calls me.

In situation two, I don't think I could ever date Meg, I mean I don't like her like that, and in situation two, Spencer's a bitch, which makes a lot of sense, cause she's hated me for a while now. But that kiss didn't feel fake to me, the way she touched me didn't feel fake. That fact that she's done it twice now makes me think it's not fake. So I've come to a conclusion.

I'm so fucking confused.

……………

The next day at school I met my friends at our usual place in the quad, by-passing the popular kids like usual. But now, everyday I notice Spencer staring at me as I walk by. I wonder if she used to do that while she and Meg were dating. Actually come to think of it, I'm surprised I didn't catch Meg and Spencer dating before. I mean Meg would always be somewhere else at lunch, and she would always be 'busy' after school and on the weekends, and as soon as they broke up it's like she was right back in the picture.

Anyways, back to my friends. I take a seat next to Meg and act like nothing's different. Right now I just don't have the heart or courage, for that matter, to tell Meg about me and Spencer. Not that there is a 'me and Spencer'. Though I wouldn't really mind it. Actually, I wouldn't mind kissing her again. For hours. All day. Wow, I really need to kiss her now. But I'll suppress my wants and needs for now.

"Ashley we have a surprise for you!" Charlie and Stephanie says on behalf of our group. There's about 6 other people with us, but they people vary day in and day out.

"surprise?" I ask with raised eyebrows. I hate surprises. I look over at Megan and she shakes her head at me.

"I had _nothing _to do with it" she says like she knows what 'it' is. And 'it' is something that I'm not going to like. Oh god, here we go.

"what is it?" I ask slightly scared.

"just wait, and see" Stephanie says and we all sit at our table waiting for it. I'm looking around trying to see if there's anything or anyone inconspicuous, but no luck. After about one minute we all hear the P.A. system turn on and the principal's voice floats through the school.

"good morning students, before the school day starts I'd like to announce the list of candidates for this year's Student Council."

Oh, please don't tell me they did what I think they did…

The principal starts listing off the students up for treasurer, secretary, and vice president. Luckily my name hasn't been mentioned yet, but I wouldn't hold my breath. "… and finally in our last category we have two candidates on the ballot. For school president we have Ashley Davies" fuck, I knew it. "… and Spencer Carlin" fuck me. This is so fucked up. I think I swear way too fucking much. Point proven.

I glare at my friends then turn my head to face my now opponent, Spencer Carlin, who is staring right back at me. There's going to be a throw down soon. I can feel it.

"you guys! I didn't want to be Student president!" I yell.

"come on Ash" Aiden says approaching our table. "what's a little friendly competition between rivals?" he asks teasingly.

"shut up Aiden. I wouldn't be laughing if I were you. You've got to choose between voting for me and voting for Spencer" I remind him and I see his face fall. He's screwed.

"meh, don't worry about it. In the mean time, I can't wait for your campaigning."

"too bad you're not going to see any. Because I'm not going to run in this thing. It's totally just a popularity contest, and everyone knows it."

"but think about it Ash, only the popular kids voted before because only popular kids ran. If you run think about how many people would vote for you? Last year, only half the school voted because the other half didn't want to vote for anyone." Charlie says.

"so?"

"well, did _you_ vote last year?" he asks.

"no."

"Exactly! When one of our own runs for pres we will vote!" he tells me.

"it doesn't matter anyways, I don't want to be president" I tell them.

"good, because you wouldn't have a chance even if you did run" Spencer says, coming up behind me with her and her posse. And yes I totally just said posse. Shoot me now.

I turn around and I can tell Megan, Charlie and Steph all stood up behind me as well. "get lost Carlin" I tell her.

"afraid of a little competition, Davies?" Madison asks.

"oh, I have no doubt that I could whip your ass in this competition, all I would have to do is put up a poster that says 'Vote for Ashley Davies… because she's not Spencer Carlin'. Beating you is easy; I just don't want to do it. This school is corrupted"

"thanks to you" Madison counters. "if you didn't want to divide yourself so much in this school it'd be a lot better"

"keep telling yourself that Madison." I tell her.

"okay, look fine, don't run against me. I don't care anyways" Spencer says.

"Ash, let me remind you if you drop out of the running Spencer gets control of the school by sheer last resort" Megan reminds me. Fuck, she's right. Not running would basically be handing it over to her. I look back at my eager friends awaiting my answer. Well I guess there's only one thing left to do.

I step onto the bench of a picnic table, then onto the top of it. Most of the people's eyes are on me, like usual, so I take this time to get my message across.

"Vote for Ashley!" I yell and my friends start cheering and clapping. I look down at Spencer who has a smirk on her face. I'm sure she planned this all along.

"game on, Davies" she tells me.

"game on, Carlin" I repeat with a smile. I know we should be enemies, and as far as everyone else is concerned, we are, but between you and me, I want her so bad.

…………

So during the free period that I have I usually hang out with my friends in the quad or go out shopping or something like that. But since today I found out I'm going to be running for president I decided to get some work done. So I went straight to the back of the library to sketch out some posters. I can get some of my art friends to do the final copy. I'm about to drop my stuff at one of the large round table when I spot another person back here. Usually the library is dead empty during classes, but not now.

I guess Spencer decided to get a head start as well.

"what are you doing here?" I ask, putting my bag down on my chair. She finally looks up and realizes that someone else is with her.

"free period" she says looking up from her book.

"I didn't know you have free period now, too" I say. "how come I never see you around?"

"I stay in the library" she tells me. I don't know if it's the fact that she's in the library or if she's alone, but she seems different now. Less bitchy, you could say.

"that's pretty geeky" I comment.

"what are you doing here?"

"well, I decided to start on my posters and shit" I tell her. See, like I said before, I only bitch when bitched at. If you're nice, I'll be nice too.

"so you're actually going through with it?"

"couldn't let you just win, now could I?" I ask with a smirk. "even though I was strictly told I had no chance of winning from a certain blonde"

"says the girl who said her slogan would be vote for me because I'm not Spencer Carlin." She retaliates and I smile at myself. That was a good line. "you know, if anyone saw us right now it would probably start some rumours. I mean, us being civil and all…" Spencer says. Now here's where I come to a fork in the road, I could do something dangerous and wild, or I could just let everything go.

Which one do you think I'm going to choose?

"I know something we could do that would also start some rumours" I say slyly and I saunter over to her.

"…and what is that?" she asks as she plays along with our little conversation.

"come with me and I'll show you" I say as I pick up my bag from the chair, ready to leave, with or without her.

"I don't know…"

"worried about your friends?" I ask, already knowing the answer. "don't you ever get tired of hiding who you are, even to yourself?"

Without a word she gets up, grabbing her book and bag and follows me down the empty hallways. I know exactly where to go.

"Ashley, where are we going?" Spencer whispers as I lead her down another hall. We finally reach our destination and I pull my keys out of my pocket.

"the supply closet we cleaned out?" Spencer asks me. Remember how Mr. Daniels gave me those keys? Well before I gave them back I was sure to make extra copies. I open the door and push Spencer in before me. I drop my bag and close the door behind her and before either of us can say another word I press her up against one of the shelves and I press my lips down to hers. I've been wanting to do this since this morning when I saw her. I know I said I wasn't going to let her use me, but maybe I'm using her.

She lets out a little moan as my hands find their way to the hem of her shirt and start moving in small circles. She wraps her legs around my waist as my arms lift her up by her thighs. Her back is pressed into one of the shelves, probably in pain, but she doesn't care. Her arms go from wrapped around my neck, to grasping my head and holding it aside so she can kiss down my neck.

"fuck…" I breathe out as I feel her suck on my pulse point. This girl can kiss. She goes back to kissing my lips and I can feel her tongue in my mouth, playing with mine. My hands find their own way down to her ass as hers get tangled in my hair. Yes this is totally wrong, I've been over this, but it feels so good. I put her down and let her stand on her own as I pull away from her mouth and start kissing down her neck, while my hands fiddle with her belt buckle. Before I can actually undo it she starts pushing me backwards until she pushes me to sit down on the stool in the corner. She straddles my legs and I let my hands wander underneath her shirt and up her toned stomach until I reach her breasts.

She lets out a slightly louder moan, like she can't help it. I smirk against her mouth, knowing I can't help it either. I'm about to go underneath her bra when there's a jiggle of the door knob. We both pull back and stare at the still closed door.

"did you lock the door?" Spencer whispers.

"no…" I whisper back. She quickly tries to jump off of me but her leg gets caught on the stool and we both fall to the floor with me on top. The door opens and we see someone we did not expect.

"oh my god!"

"Kyla!" we both say at the same time.

"ohmygodohmygodohmygod" she repeats over and over again. I pull her into the closet with us and shut the door, this time I actually lock it. I pick the stool up and force her to sit down on it, but she's still in a trance like state. "oh my god, please don't tell me I just saw what I think I saw!"

"okay, you didn't see what you thought you saw" I say with a smile, but she just glares at me.

"you two were… with the lips… and the hands" she tries to form a sentence, failing miserably at that. But she did see what happened, which might be an issue.

"Kyla listen to me, you can't tell anyone" I say placing my hands on her shoulders to face me.

"are you two…?"

"no" Spencer and I reply together. "we just… I don't know." Spencer tries to explain. Smooth.

"Spencer, I didn't know you were…" Kyla drowns off.

"and we're going to keep it that way" Spencer says seriously and Kyla nods her head slightly in fear.

"what are you doing here anyways?" I ask.

"Ms. Roberts told me to get some paper from in here. I can't believe you two are _together_" she says while clasping her fingers together to demonstrate. "I mean don't you two hate each other or something? I know Ashley's always bitching and complaining on how Spencer did this and Spencer did that…"

"shut up Kyla…" I mutter. Spencer just raises her eyebrows at me.

"and then Spencer, God, she's like Ashley's such a bitch, Ashley's such a slut… it's like you two are constantly talking about each other." Kyla continues and this time I look at Spencer with raised eyebrows. But what do you expect? We're both known for being bitchy. "…to tell you the truth I don't even know why I'm that surprised you two are together. I did mention that you guys had some sexual tension thing going on like two days ago"

"We're not together" Spencer and I say at the same time.

"what ever you say" Kyla says, getting up and getting some paper off the shelf. "well I'm off to class. Toodles!" she says and exits the way she comes in.

"that was way too close" I say out loud. Someone with half a brain could have actually showed up.

…………

For the rest of the day Spencer and I ignored each other, except for the stolen glances during period five. Since we had a substitute teacher today in period 5 there was no detention, and good thing too because it probably would have been weird between me and Spencer. Either that or we would have been making out. My money's on the second one. Instead of sticking around to talk anyone I take off to my car where I see Kyla already waiting for me.

"don't you ever have cheerleading practice after school anymore?" I ask.

"we rehearse during lunch ever since Spencer got detention after school for a week" she explains to me as I unlock the car and we get in.

"so next week you'll have practice?" I ask as I start up the car.

"yep"

"good, then you can get a ride home with Aiden, because I'm not waiting until 4:30 everyday just for you"

"don't I just feel loved" Kyla says sarcastically. I pull out of the parking lot and take our normal route down to Mac's school. "where are we going?"

"where do you think we're going? We're going to pick up Mac" I tell her. I've been doing this almost every day for a few months and she still hasn't learned. Slow much?

"wait, you're seeing Spencer and Mac at the same time?" okay, I can feel where this conversation is going.

"I'm not with Spencer" I tell her again, trying to change the subject.

"Ashley! You were about to have sex with her in the supply closet today and now you're going to go pick up your girlfriend from school! Do you not see what's wrong with this picture?!"

"Kyla, just stay out of my business. Plus, you don't even like Mac!"

"so? It doesn't mean she deserves to be cheated on like that! You can't have two girlfriends Ashley!"

"Spencer's not my girlfriend!" I yell as we pull into the parking lot. Their school's not even out yet. It always gets out about 10 minutes after mine. And since today there was no detention to hold me back, I'm early.

"Ash, you know it's not right, even if you are or aren't dating Spencer"

"look, I just don't know what to do!"

"well end it with one of them!" Kyla says like it's obvious.

"…which one?"

"I don't know!"

"I mean I love Mac, she's my girlfriend, and I've been with her forever. But Spencer, she's new, she's different, she's like me, but popular, but no one knows about her…"

"… and who exactly knows about Mac?" Kyla asks, trying to point something out.

"yeah, I know. Why do I always go for the closet lesbians?" I ask hypothetically.

"because you like making out in closets…?" Kyla offers jokingly.

"very funny" I say sarcastically.

"okay, well what ever you do, do it soon, the longer it goes on the worse it'll get."

…………

Okay see the thing is, as much as I like being a bitch, I can feel really guilty easily. For example, now. Kyla's whole little 'stringing two girls along is wrong' thing kind of worked on me. But what the fuck do I do? Spencer, Mac, Spencer, Mac, Spencer, Mac. Two very hot girls, only one very hot Ashley.

We arrive at Mac's school and I see her standing around, talking with her friends, just killing some time.

"so are you going to break up with her now or later?" Kyla mumbles as we watch Mac slowly take her time saying bye to her friends.

"give me one reason why I should…"

"you're sister and best friend don't like her, her friends don't even know about you, and… you wouldn't have kissed Spencer if there wasn't something wrong with your relationship"

"…I said _one_" I say back, angrily.

"come on Ash, don't be one of _those_ girls" Kyla states.

"one of what girls?"

"the girls who cheat on their girlfriend or boyfriend because they think they can get away with it." Maybe she's right. Maybe she's right about all of it. About Spencer, love, everything. Maybe it's time for a change.

_Choices are hard, but that doesn't mean it exempts me from making them. It just makes it that much harder._

**So that was chapter 6, next chapter I finally planned the break-up between Ash&Mac. I know you've all been waiting on it anxiously. Lol. All I've heard in the reviews is how Mac is a bitch and all. You guys crack me up. **


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Why don't we cheer for the cheerleaders

**Chapter 7: Why don't we cheer for the cheerleaders?**

**Thanks everybody for more amazing reviews, it blows my mind how many reviews I got in the last day or two… so far it's up to 35! It's just been phenomenal. I even had people proclaiming their love for me. It doesn't get much better than that. Next thing you know someone's going to be proposing to me. LOL.**

What does it take to break someone's heart? Cheating on them? Lying to them? ...or is it dumping them? Well, let me tell you, that last one's definitely getting added to the mix today. But I wonder, is it possible to break someone's heart with a kiss? touching? sex? What exactly does it take for someone to break a heart?

After I dropped Kyla off at home, I decided to take Mac to the park. This might be a little rough, and I guess if we're in front of a park full of little kids there'll probably be less of a commotion.

"so what's up?" Mac asks as we walk to the park and take a seat on the bench.

"what do you mean?"

"well we're at the park, not doing anything planned, so it's obvious you want to talk about something… so spill" she says rubbing my arm soothingly. Not helping. I hate how she chooses now to be a concerned girlfriend. The moment I choose to break her heart, she magically finds it in herself to become concerned. Life sucks. Disagree? No I didn't think so.

"…Mac, you know I love you right?"

"mhm"

"well… it's just… I think…" fuck, I can't even talk right now.

"what?"

"… I just think we should… break up" I say quietly as I avoid all chances of looking her in the eye. Like just ripping off the band-aid, getting it over with.

"…is this because of my friends?" she asks, and I can hear her voice starting to waver. Oh god, I hate when she does that. It makes me feel so guilty. "cause if it is I can introduce you…"

"Mackenzie, it's not just that… it's everything. It's the fact that even after a year when I kiss you from behind you head butt me in the nose, or how it doesn't matter what friends I introduce to you they don't like you and you don't like them… and… it's just a bunch of things…"

"… is… is there someone else?" she asks in fear.

"what? No… no…" I say. Well yeah, there is, but there's no point in hurting her like that. Well I don't know if I would call Spencer 'someone else'. I mean yeah there was the classroom, twice, her bedroom, the closet. I guess…

"… who is she?" she asks, obviously seeing passed my poker face.

"… there's no one else. It's just even after being with you for a year we've gotten nowhere in our relationship and I can't just let it keep happening. It's not fair to either of us…"

"but Ash, we can change that, we can make it work… can't we?" she asks, as she's on the brink of crying.

"…I don't think we can." And that's just the truth.

………

It's been a rough couple days to say the least. I haven't talked to Spencer what so ever, and Mac won't talk to me. I don't blame her, but I didn't want things to be like this. Thankfully this time of the year is probably my favourite.

"do you know what time of year it is?" I ask Meg as I approach her and take a seat beside her at our table.

"hm, well I'm guessing since it's not December it's not Christmas time" she says jokingly.

"no, my very best friend in the whole wide world. This weekend is our favourite time of year…" besides Christmas that is.

"is it…?"

"yes!" I say excitedly. "it's this years annual cheerleading competition!" I say and Meg let's out an excited shriek. So every year there's this cheerleading competition a couple hours away from our school. It brings in cheerleading squads from around the country. Now you're probably asking why am I so excited? I'm not a cheerleader. Yes, this is true, however every year the hottest girls in the shortest skirts, doing the splits, come to town and do you think I would miss that? Hell no. And since Kyla's on the cheerleading squad Meg and I have an excuse to go down there with her and scope out the hot girls. Degrading? Yes. Disappointing? Most definitely not.

And since this year Mac and I are broken up we shall evoke our little game.

"so I was thinking we should add in the scoring rules this year" I tell Meg.

"yes, totally!" she says excitedly. "can we go over them again?"

"yes, we must. Okay, so 50 points for kissing a girl, 100 points for getting to second base, 500 points sleeping with her, and 1000 points if it's a cheerleader from our school. Of course evidence must be provided. Oh and double points if she's straight." I say. Okay, so I know the 1000 points is a lot, but we never sleep with the girls from our school. They already know about us, and don't want to take any chances.

"sounds good to me. When do we leave?"

"tomorrow, after school. It's the entire weekend and we come back on Sunday afternoon. As soon as it hits 12:00 noon on Sunday the game is over"

"and what exactly does the winner get?" She asks curiously.

"well…" I drag out. "not only does the winner get bragging rights for a whole year, but she also get's one free favour from the other girl…" I make up. I'm not really that great on thinking on the spot. "deal?"

"deal."

"what's a deal?" Kyla asks as she and Aiden approach us.

"nothing" we say together. "just talking about the cheerleading competition this weekend" I explain.

"oh my god! Aren't you guys so excited? A whole weekend at a hotel with practically no supervision"

"I hear that" I say. Kyla knows Meg and I always come down there. She also knows we only go down there and use her as an excuse to check out girls. And I know she knows about our little game, but chooses to pretend like she doesn't. I would too if I were her. It's potentially scarring.

"Kyla!" someone calls her. "come on we have to go practice" Madison says as she and Spencer walk over in their uniforms. "hey Aiden" Madison greets him. "freaks" she greets us.

"slut" I say back and receive a scoff. "so are you guys as excited about this competition as I am?" I ask with a smirk. Madison always hates that I get to come.

"are you serious? I don't even know why you come! It's not even like you're supporting your school" Madison says.

"wait, you're coming?" Spencer asks.

"yeah, we are" I say referring to Meg and myself. "we always go down to watch the cheerleading competition"

"oh" Spencer says in a surprised tone.

"of course they have alternate motives" Aiden adds in.

"oh…" Spencer says, a little more disappointed.

"yeah, whatever, just stay away from our squad" Madison says.

"don't worry, we wouldn't touch you or your squad with a 10 foot stick" Megan says. Instead of listening to Madison and Megan continue bickering I watch Spencer. I'm still not sure where we stand. I've never known, but maybe I'll be able to get those 1000 points this year. 2000 actually, since she's 'straight' and all. But I don't think I could… well I _could_ but then I'd have the duty of having to prove to Meg I slept with her, with photos. And Meg doesn't even know anything… so I guess it's just out of the question.

"Bitch!" I tune in to hear Megan yell at Madison.

"whore!" Madison yells back. How do things escalate to this?

"alright, time to go" Spencer says pulling Madison and Kyla away with her.

"god!" Meg yells in a frustrated tone. "she just get's to me! You know?" she asks hypothetically. I see Spencer pulling Madison away, but every few seconds she manages to glance back at me.

"yeah… I know." But then again I don't think we're talking about the same person.

……………

"do you smell that?" Megan asks as we enter the foyer to our nice hotel and watch as cheerleader after cheerleader walk by.

"smell what?"

"cheerleader" she answers.

"oh yeah…" I reply as we both watch an especially hot cheerleader walk by us. We look at each other then look back at her.

"check in time" we both say at the same time. We head towards the front desk and stand in line behind a group of cheerleaders all from the same school. Just as they're turning to leave, and as we're going to check in, I recognize one of them.

"Mac?"

"Ashley…" she says stopping in her tracks. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm… cheering Kyla on in the competition" I lie. Cheering for cheerleaders. How stupid is that?

"oh…" I know she said 'oh' but I also know she doesn't believe it. "I've got to go" she says quickly and just leaves. I forgot she was a cheerleader. What ever, it was awkward enough. Megan gives me a look trying to say 'forget it' and nudges me and we go to check in. I see the woman behind the desk and she's got to be in her early 20's at the most, long blonde hair, beautiful face, and let me tell you, practice makes perfect.

"hi, welcome to the Royal Suites hotel, how can I help you?"

"hi, I made two reservations under Davies" I tell her, she types some stuff in and comes up with my reservations.

"ah, yes, here we go, one double bed suite" she recites. Hold on, two beds?

"hold on. There must be some mistake. I booked two separate single rooms" I clarify and she checks her reservations again.

"I'm sorry but we have you down as a two bed suite" she informs me. Time to turn on the Davies' charm. I smirk at Meg and she catches the hint.

"look, I'm sorry to change the subject, but you look so incredibly young, are you in the cheerleading contest this weekend?" I ask, trying to work my magic. And I see it working, she blushes and I look down at her name tag.

"me? No" she laughs off.

"Cameron? Is it? I don't mean to be hassle to such a pretty girl like your self, but is there any other rooms we could change?" I ask. She smiles for a second then snaps back to reality and checks her computer.

"I'm sorry, but it looks like we're all booked this weekend, with the competition and all…"

"… well do you think you could maybe switch around a couple of things and put me and my friend in the rooms we asked for? I know it's a lot to ask, but I'm sure _you_ can make it happen. I'm sure you could make _a lot_ of things happen…" I say slyly and she turns as red as a tomato.

"uhm… let me see what I can do" she says in a low tone, wouldn't want to get caught, now would we? She fidgets around with the computer a little and I wink over at Megan who knows how I work.

"here you go Miss." Cameron says, slipping me two card keys. "One single, room 317. And another single, room 318" perfect. But this also means two other people get screwed over. Oh well!

"oh Cameron you're a life saver." I say with a smile. "thank you so much"

"you're very welcome"

"don't be afraid to drop by sometime. You know my room number" I say with a wink and Megan and I walk away.

"this weekend is going to be fun" Meg emphasizes.

………

After dropping our stuff off in our rooms and cleaning up a little we head down to the auditorium to do a little early scouting. We take a couple of seats in the back and look around. In the auditorium we can see hundreds of girls scattered about. There's probably about 15 teams here, and this is just the morning group. Luckily our school and Mac's school isn't in this group. I think they're later on. In the mean time I intend on making use of every minute of these gorgeous girls.

"Hey, I'm go-" I turn to Meg but I realize she's already gone and talking to another girl. Just the idea I had. I get up and make my way over to the closest girl that's by herself. I see a petite little blonde sitting by her self with her head phones in.

"not into cheerleading?" I ask taking a seat beside her and she turns to me with a confused face.

"what?" she asks, taking the headphones out.

"not into cheerleading?" I repeat.

"oh, not really, I'm just on the squad for my friends" she says and I nod.

"I'm Ashley."

"Riley" she replies. "so Ashley, since you're not here in a cheerleading outfit, I'm guessing you're either not a cheerleader, or checking out the other teams" she guesses.

"a little bit of both" I reply. Points for double meaning.

"really? Sounds like you got your priorities straight" she says with a smirk. She's gay.

"hm, priorities – yes. Straight? Not so much" I say with a wink and I see her blush a little.

"so what do you do for fun Riley, besides cheerleading, that is" I ask.

"wouldn't you like to know…" she says flirtatiously. Score.

"_I would_"

"well, uh you know this whole thing probably won't start for about 10 minutes. Maybe I could show you what else I like to do for fun…"

"sounds like a plan to me" I say as we both stand up. She takes my hand and guides me towards the back of the auditorium. On my way down the aisle I wink at Meg who's still trying to get her girl. We make it to the back where the entrance is, but instead of leaving she pulls me in the opposite direction passed a door and into a dim lit stairwell. She leans up against the wall and pulls me closer towards her, without hesitation our lips meet and fall into sync. I switch things around a little and have her leaning against me as I lean against the wall.

I place my hands lightly just under her cheerleading uniform top and wait to see how she reacts. If she touches my hands it means she doesn't want to go any further than kissing, but if she does nothing I see it as an opportunity to move further. After a few seconds I feel nothing holding me back so I slowly slip my hand further and further up her shirt as she continues to kiss me.

After making out for a few minutes I pull my phone out and hold it up a little, hoping she doesn't notice. She makes her way to kissing my neck and I snap the picture. Perfect. That's 100 points right there.

"Riley Carlson, please report to the auditorium, Riley Carlson" a voice comes from a P.A. system. I take my hands out from under her shirt as she pulls back.

"duty calls" she tells me as she fixes her hair and make up. All cheerleaders are the same. She gives me a quick kiss and leaves me alone in this stair well. After a few minutes I collect my thoughts and go back into the auditorium, where I find Meg back in her seat.

"no action?" I whisper as we watch one high school do their preliminary routine.

"straight" Meg grunts. "you?"

"I got a few points…" I say as I eye Riley's group on stage doing their dance or what ever. "better luck next time"

…………

After the first session got out we followed some of the girls out of the auditorium and tried working some new girls over.

I managed to get a few more girls, but nothing big, just you know kissing and second base. The whole sex thing usually works better at night when all the girls are staying up late. I saw Megan get a few girls but I don't know how far she went with them. We usually keep our points separate until the last minute. It's better that way.

So what we do at night is we head out to the bar that most of the bad ass cheerleaders go to at night. Usually it's the wild ones that are easier to get into bed, mostly because they're drinking. But this is where Meg and I spend our Friday and Saturday nights. We show up together, but leave separately. As soon as we get into the club we order up a couple of drinks and I think I already see my target for the night.

"dibs" I say to Meg as I nod in the girl's direction.

"she's all yours" Meg says as she sees another girl as well. I down my drink in one shot and make my way to the dance floor. Only I'm stopped by someone.

"hey, want to dance?" a deep voice asks me. I look up to see some guy hitting on me. He's probably from this area and knew there was a cheerleading competition. Probably doing the same thing I am.

"not interested" I say and walk passed him and to the girl soon to be featured in Girls Gone Wild if she drinks anymore.

"hey, I'm Ashley." I yell over the music. She slows her dancing down and looks at me.

"Jennifer" she yells back.

"want to dance?" I yell and I see her glance back at her friends who all start giggling.

"no thanks" she yells and turns her back on me. Yeah, rejection hurts like a bitch.

"I guess she's straight" someone yells from behind me. I turn around to see some girl I don't know, but if she's talking to me, I automatically have a chance.

"guess so" I reply with a smile. "Ashley" I introduce myself again.

"yeah, I heard. I'm Kelly" she says.

"well since I'm partner-less. Do you by any chance want to dance?"

"love to" she replies and moves closer to me to get a better feel.

………

About half an hour later Riley and I had danced the night away. She's so into me, which works for me. I see her brush some hair behind her ear and try to wipe away the sweat on her forehead.

"hey, want to cool down?" I ask and she only nods knowing there's no point of trying to yell over the music. I take her hand and drag her out from the crowd, we head across the street back to my hotel and inside.

"you're staying here, right?" she asks.

"yeah. Totally" I reply.

"good because I don't think I'm up for sneaking into a hotel tonight" she says as she continues to let me string her along.

"so what _are_ you up for tonight?" I ask slyly as we approach a door and I pull out my room key.

"I don't know, why don't you tell me…" she also says with a smirk. I swipe my card and the door opens, but we're not up at my hotel room. We're somewhere else. The door opens up and we enter the large room and I notice we're the only ones here.

"well how about a swim?" I ask, as I show her the pool. The water is glowing and looks absolutely enticing.

"a swim?" she ask doubtfully. I pull her by the her hands towards the pool more trying to get her to go for it. "I didn't bring my swim suit"

"oh isn't that too bad…" I say with a dirty smile. "but don't worry, I didn't bring mine either." I say as I let go of her hands and lift my shirt up over my head. I undo the zipper to my denim skirt and toss my clothes to the floor. "you coming in?" I ask as I head towards the diving board, half naked. I see her quickly rip off her shirt and jeans and walk closer to me. She gets up on the diving board beside me and I lean in for a kiss, but before she can get too into it I pull back and dive into the water, barely making a splash.

As soon as I resurface I see her dive into the water right behind me, I swim off to the side so I can stand in the slightly deeper end of the shallow end, with the water somewhere just below my neck. As soon as I get comfortable I see Kelly swim up right in front of me.

"nice and cooled off now?" I ask quietly seeing as she is only inches from my face.

"very" she replies.

"good, then we can get to what we really came here for"

"and what is that?" she asks.

"this" I say lowly as I press my lips down to hers and switch places with her so that I can push her up against the pool wall. As soon as I've got her where I want her I move my hands down her body sliding down her breasts and straight to her panties which are still on. I dip my hand inside and put two fingers inside of her without any hesitation.

"Ashley" she moans my name as I continue with the task at hand. No pun intended. Oh hell, who am I kidding? Pun _totally_ intended.

Now the only problem is, how do I get evidence of this entire thing. Here I am having sex with some girl in a pool at midnight and my phone is way on the other side of the room with my clothes. Hm, what to do, what to do.

Hold on, never mind I think my answer just walked in. In comes Meg with her girl in hand, probably with the same idea as me. But as soon as she and her little friend hear Kelly moaning my name they freeze in spot and I just look at Meg quickly. Kelly freezes as well seeing as we now have an audience.

"shit" she mutters as she pushes me away and swims to the ladder.

"uh… sorry" Megan says and drags her girl out of the pool with her. It's too late now, the moment's ruined.

"I should go" Kelly says quickly making her way over to where we dropped our clothes. She grabs a free towel and starts drying her self off quickly. I get out of the pool to follow her actions and as soon as I make my way over to her she's already dressed.

"sorry about that" I say to her as I dry myself off.

"don't worry about it. Maybe we could continue this another time…" she pulls out a piece of paper from her purse and writes her number on it. "call me?"

"sure" I say taking the paper and holding it in between my fingers not even looking at the number. She winks at me and heads out the doors and probably home. As soon as the door closes I crumple up the piece of paper and toss it on the floor. I don't do 'call me later'. I get dressed and head back up to my room, no one the wiser. The best part about this whole thing was that since Meg saw me I don't need any evidence. The image burned into her mind is enough to get me the points and we both know it.

I head back up to my room quickly and just go straight to sleep. I need my energy if I'm going to do this all again tomorrow.

So, what does it take to break a heart? Is it a kiss? A touch? A quick fuck in the pool? The answer: it's none of it… and all of it. The only way to truly break someone's heart, is to make them feel alone, uncomfortable… and like no one _wants_ them, not even you. So after finally discovering the answer to my long awaited question, I've realized I am a heart breaker. I'm someone who will make you feel like no one wants you, and I'll do it over and over again. Why you may ask?

… so other people can feel what I feel.

**So there it is. I know the break up between Mac&Ash was short, but I know you guys don't like her anyways, but she will be coming back into the story just to let you know. But I think in the future you'll end up liking her.**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Why not take advantage

**Chapter 8: Why not take advantage?**

**Hey everybody, another update. Thank you again for the amazing reviews, this time I even got proposed to once or twice lol. Now, I know a lot of you were disappointed in the lack of spashley, so I made up for it in this chapter. In fact, this chapter is rated M for all the spashley goodness – meaning sex. So now that you've been warned, let's carry on.**

_Do you know why we take advantage of people? …because we can._

I woke up the next morning by a knock at the connecting door between Meg and mine's room. I glance up at the clock seeing it's only 7:30am. It's way too early.

"go away Meg!" I yell and the knocking stops… but then starts up again. I throw off my blankets with a growl and charge towards the door.

"what?" I snap as I open the door and there's standing Meg.

"good morning to you too" she says and walks into my room, taking a seat on my bed. "no girl?"

"took care of her last night in the pool." I say as I flop down onto the bed. "by the way, you seeing us counts as my evidence"

"fine" she mutters.

"so where's your chick?" I ask.

"she ditched after seeing you and your girl together" she says in an annoyed tone and I silently laugh. Even better for me. "what ever, I'll pick up the slack today."

"uh huh" I mutter. "so tell me again why you're in my room at 7:30am"

"well I just came to wake you up… oh and to tell you that I ran into Mac last night… well sort of."

"what do you mean sort of?"

"she was giving me dirty looks all night. And by dirty I don't mean sex-in-the-swimming-pool kind of dirty. I mean more like die now, kind of dirty"

"sorry, she thinks I was cheating on her while we were dating, I guess she thinks it was you or something"

"what ever." She rolls her eyes and gets up off my bed. "well now that I have successfully waken you up, get out of bed, and shower, you smell like chlorine" she says as she smacks my ass and skips out of my room and back to hers, shutting the door behind her.

Well I guess I should get up.

…………

As soon as we're down stairs Meg and I split up and get back in the game… so to speak. Today all of the cheerleading squads who are in today's events are off in their own room practicing their routines. They had to make new ones or something like that. I guess it's part of the competition. So after Meg ditched me I thought I drop by the King High girls.

I checked the chart at the front desk and found they were in the ball room rehearsing. I open the door silently and enter the room to see them in the middle of their routine. The music is blaring and none of them have yet to see me enter the room. Half the girls do a spin as planned, one of them being Spencer. She spots me as she turns and freezes only to be knocked into another girl and screw up the entire routine.

"sorry guys" she says. "let's take a break anyways" she says as she turns off the music with her remote and all the girls go off to get some water from their bags.

"Kyla" I call out and Kyla turns around to see me.

"hey Ash" she says wiping the sweat off from her neck with a small towel she brought. "what's up?"

"here, I thought you could use this" I say and hand her over a couple bottles of water. I'm not a terrible sister.

"oh thanks" she says genuinely.

"ew, what are you doing here?" Madison asks as she comes over, obviously to pick a fight.

"just coming to check you out Maddy" I say with a wink.

"ew!" she says again.

"don't kid yourself Madison, you're not worth my time. I'm just here to give Kyla some water, so calm down."

"you better go" Spencer says walking up beside her. "we've got practice to do" she says, but not as mean as you think she would. Actually she just sounds concerned about her squad. It's nice to see someone actually passionate about something important to them.

"yeah, get!" Madison yells trying to shoo me.

"actually, I'm allowed to sit in on anyone's rehearsal." I inform them.

"rules state that no one can watch our practice" Spencer counters.

"no… the rules that that no one can watch your practice – if they're on another squad." I look down at my clothes then back up at the 3 girls in front of me. "last time I checked, this isn't a cheerleading uniform" I say smartly.

"don't you have other things to do?" Kyla asks.

"nope" I say with a smirk as I walk over to the benches and take a seat. Spencer, Madison and Kyla's eyes, all still following me. The thing is, if Madison and Spencer hadn't told me to leave so rudely, I probably wouldn't be taunting them from the bench.

"fine" Spencer says angrily. "back in formation" she yells and all the girls drop their stuff to go back to what they were rehearsing before I came into the picture. As I sit here in front of the squad just watching them move I keep my eyes on Spencer the entire time. Every few seconds she looks back at me and I see her screw up over and over again. And every time she does the squad starts over from the beginning. It's nice to have this sort of power.

"Spencer get your shit together!" Madison yells as Spencer turns the wrong way… again.

"sorry! I just… sorry" she repeats.

"yeah, you said that already" Madison snaps.

"I think I just need a break. I'll be back in 10 minutes. Mad, can you work with the girls on the second verse choreography while I'm gone?"

"fine" she sighs and takes the remote from Spencer's hand. She starts the song over and they wait till they get cued in. Mean while Spencer heads out the back doors. I guess now's my chance… to do what? I'm not so sure.

I sneak out the back door too and look around to see Spencer heading down the hall and into the elevator by her self. I make a mad dash and manage to get in just before the doors close.

"going up?" she asks like a bell hop.

"I suppose, since we're on the ground floor and all" I say jokingly. "going to your room?"

"nah, just riding the elevator for a few minutes. Nothing clears your head like awkward elevator silence"

"well maybe we could change awkward elevator silence into awkward elevator conversation?" I ask and she smiles, but doesn't actually give me an answer. "so how's the competition going?"

"it's fine, these teams pretty much suck so we'll probably end up in the finals tomorrow"

"cool…" I say and it goes back to silence.

"so are you enjoying the girl watching?" she asks, knowing that's the only reason why Meg and I came here.

"yeah, what can I say, I have a thing for cheerleaders" I say with a smirk, but then realize I'm talking to a cheerleader. I don't want it to come off like I'm hitting on her… or do I? now I'm just confusing myself. "I mean, my ex is a cheerleader…" I say trying to cover up my previous statement.

"Before Mackenzie?" she asks.

"no. Mackenzie." I inform her.

"…oh, I didn't know you two…"

"broke up? Yeah, why would you know?" I snap at her. I'm not sure why, but I just do.

"…sorry I didn't mean to-"

"-forget it." I cut her off. Why am I so angry? Maybe it's because I know I like her, but it's like chasing after an empty dream, or false hope. Even if I did like her, and she liked me, we could never be together. "this is my floor." I say as the doors open and another girl walks in. it's not actually my floor, but I'm just afraid to see how she reacts.

"Ashley" I hear her call out my name, but I just keep on walking and only turn around to see the doors close and that look on her face. That look of desperation and want… and even fear.

I know that face well. Mostly because I know I have that same look every time I look at her.

………………

After going to my room and taking a long deserved nap, I decided to get back in the game, so to speak. I spent the morning watching Kyla and Spencer and I'm sure Meg was able to score a few points. So that being said, I need to catch up.

I managed to snag some simple points during team rehearsals and breaks, but now it was night and it was time to get down to business. And by business I mean it's time to go back to the club!

Meg and I hit the club a little later than usual hoping that some of the girls might be a little drunk. And boy were we right, as soon as we entered the club we could see a handful of girls ready to pass out.

"Ash, check out that blonde, she's practically dancing on the tables" Meg points out casually a girl who's standing up on the chairs, with her friends surrounding her trying to get down.

"that's no blonde… that's Spencer" I tell her as I see Kyla is the one trying to get her down from the chair.

"perfect" Meg says.

"yeah, I know right?" I say as I'm still staring at Spencer.

"no… I meant _that"_ she says pointing discretely to Mac who's off dancing with some friends.

"fuck" I mutter to myself.

"… do you want to… get out of here?" she asks awkwardly.

"no, I'm not going to let them stop me from having fun, especially Mac" I tell Meg and just like that we're back in the game doing our own thing. Within a few minutes I see Megan dancing with some girl on the dance floor while I'm at the bar, still looking. I look around the room, but my vision soon lands right back where I didn't want to look. On her. I see Kyla managed to get her off the chair, but now she's shamelessly flirting with some guys probably from this area.

I watch carefully as I see her touch his arm and bat her eyelashes at her. Obviously asking for something not so innocent. Just as I see him start pulling her towards the door I figured I'd had enough. I slam my drink down on the table and walk over to them before they can get anywhere.

"Spencer, hey! I was looking all over for you, come on, we should get to bed before the competition tomorrow!" I say enthusiastically like I'm a pal of hers from the squad or something.

"no, it's alright, I got her" the guy says, obviously trying to take advantage of this very drunk blonde.

"no that's alright, now why don't you get lost" I bark at him. He let's go of Spencer and hold's his hands up in the air like I've got a gun pointed at him. I could really use a gun right now. Spencer quickly falls into my arms seeing as she can't sustain herself even if she tried.

"Madison!" I yell out and see her pathetically flirting with not one, but two guys.

"what?" she asked in an annoyed tone.

"uh, your best friend here looks like she had too much to drink and could really use a friend right about now" I say and Madison finally looks over.

"what ever, let one of the guys take her up to her room" she says and waves us off. Yeah, right, like I'm going to let some guy practically rape her. I look around to find Kyla, but she's already gone somewhere.

"alright come on" I mutter to Spencer as I put her arm around my shoulder and one arm around her waist. "I'm taking you back to the hotel"

"oh come on, I wanted to dance" she says trying to pose for me, but fails miserably by smacking some guy in the back of the head with her free hand. I turn around to quickly apologize to the guy, but my eyes catch someone else's. Mac spots me with Spencer around my arms, but I don't have time for this.

"yeah, I think I should take you back to your room now…" I say as I practically drag her across the street and back to the hotel. As soon as we enter the elevator I pause and realize I have no idea which room she's in, or even what floor.

"Spencer" I nudge her. "what's your room number?" I ask her.

"um… it's um…" she says but then bursts out into a fit of giggles. "I don't know" she finally gives in.

"Well do you have your room key?"

"I didn't get one" she laughs again. "our rooms got screwed up and I ended up having to share with Madison." Come to think of it, in order for me and Meg to get our own separate rooms we had to screw someone else over. Guess I figured out who it was. Okay, well, I'm so not going back across the street to the club, to find Madison and get her key.

"guess you're coming to my room then…" say and hit the 4th floor button. What choice do I have?

………

When we finally get into my room, after many struggles at the door – Spencer thought it would be fun to take my key card and put it down her underwear and see how long it would take me to get it back – that was fun. I gently put Spencer down the bed and pulled out my spare change of pyjamas.

"here, put this on" I tell her tossing her the clothes while I get her a cup of water. As I take a clean glass from the tray in my room and fill up the water from the tap in the bathroom I see Spencer changing out of the corner of my eye. And for some reason I can't seem to tear my eyes away from her. From the moment she peels off her shirt, and slides out of her skirt and into the clothes I once wore, I just can't help myself. I finally snap back to reality once I realize the water I'm pouring is actually overflowing out of the cup.

"shit" I mutter and quickly turn off the tap, as soon as I'm done I look up to see Spencer's already finished dressing. Crap. "here" I say as I hand her the glass of water.

"come lay with me!" she says excitedly as she puts the glass of water down and pulls me into the bed with her. Well I never took her for the aggressive type.

"so do you like me or what?" she flat out asks.

"wow… you're really… confident… when you're drunk" confident wasn't really the first word that came to mind, but I say it anyways.

"does that turn you on?" she asks slyly, as she plays with the buttons on my shirt, quickly managing to get 3 undone. Girl's got some practice under her belt.

"Spencer… you're drunk" I tell her as I push her hand away from my chest.

"so… that wouldn't have stopped that guy at the club from doing anything" she argues as she tries to continue to unbutton my shirt.

"yeah, well I'm not that kind of person… not with you" I mutter the last part.

"oh come on, you've been flirting with me for such a long time now, and you have the opportunity to do what ever. I mean, I'm probably not even going to remember this night tomorrow morning."

And that's what's holding me back. I wouldn't want things thing to end up this way. For some reason, I just can't. Not with her.

"no" I flat out tell her and I push her hand away again. "why don't you just… sleep" I tell her as I pull back the blankets for us to get under.

"I can't now, not with all this alcohol in me!" she whines. "talk to me"

"what?"

"talk to me… just until I fall asleep" she begs. God, it's going to be a long night.

"… well what do you want to talk about?" I give in.

"tell me something about you. Something I don't know."

"something you don't know, huh?" I ask, trying to think of something. "uh, before last year I didn't even know I had a sister"

"what?" she practically yells.

"okay, indoor voices" I try to quiet her down.

"wait, so you only found out about Kyla last year?!"

"yeah, my father's specialty was infidelity I guess"

"but you two seem so close" Spencer coaxes.

"forced love" I shrug as I lay back onto the pillow, facing Spencer, and Spencer does the same – facing me.

"god, I wish I had a sister! All I have is two older brothers."

"man, I wish I had an older brother, it's so less drama, plus he wouldn't hog the bathroom as much as Kyla" I say jokingly, managing to get a laugh out of her.

"well maybe we should switch. I'll take Kyla and you take my brothers" she jokes.

"hm, they'll never notice!" I claim making us both laugh.

"so you never did answer my question… if you liked me or not" she says with a smirk.

"yeah, there was a reason I didn't answer that question, I was avoiding it" I say with a smile.

"oh come on, just tell me. I can keep a secret"

"Spencer, you're the person I want to keep the secret from" I say like it's obvious.

"okay, then I can keep a secret from myself!" she is so smashed.

"hm, I don't think it works like that"

"okay, well I'll trade you!" she says. "I'll tell you a secret about me if you tell me your secret" this could work out for me.

"okay, but you have to go first" I smirk.

"okay, uh, sometimes I wish I was a guy"

"what? Why?" I ask through a few giggles.

"because guys can just get up in the morning throw on a ratty t-shirt and some dirty jeans and walk down the halls like they're all that. They don't have to worry about how they look, they don't have to worry about being polite or having manners…" she lists off. "… and guys don't have to worry about liking other girls"

I see her goofy grin soon fade to a sad smile at the mention of her own words. I guess guys do have it easy sometimes. "okay so it's your turn to tell me your secret!" she says in a desperate will to change the subject.

"what? No way"

"what? We had a deal"

"oh come on, I hardly think being a guy is a secret, I mean secretly all girls want the same benefits as a guy. Tell me a better secret" I say and I see her think it over in her head. Best thing about drunk girls is…

"fine" …they are so easy. "um, when I was little I always dreamt I was Rachel from Friends, you know the TV show?" she asks and I nod. "well I always thought she was so cool and funny, and that she should always get the guy in the end. And she did, she got Ross. I always wanted that happy romantic, comedy filled ending." She says dreamily. "so was that good enough?" she asks hopefully.

"no way, next secret…" I say with a smirk. Her being drunk is telling me a lot.

We spent the next few hours talking about Spencer and her secrets. It didn't even feel like it had been hours, it's just like for just a while like we were in our own alternate universe. Like outside of this room there was no other world… and it's great. Because inside of this room, Spencer can be whoever she wants and I can finally see who she really is.

"…so long story short most people got a glance at my goodies" Spencer finishes another secret and by this time it's like 4:00am, meaning she's probably pretty sober by now. But she still keeps telling me her secrets. "so _now_ will you tell me if you like me or not?" she asks with her silly grin that I've seen so many times tonight. Maybe I should give her a break.

"…okay" I finally give in and she gives a little squeal as she moves closer to me underneath the sheets.

"maybe… I might just… have a tiny, little… crush on you" I manage to get out.

"I knew it!" Spencer almost shouts. "now, I finally know you're secret"

"yeah, that's true, but now I know like 100 of your secrets" I say with a smirk, and it finally clicks in her head what I was trying to do.

"you bitch! You tricked me" she yells making me laugh.

"you were drunk! I had to take advantage of you in some way"

"what, sex isn't good enough for you? You have to know all of my secrets instead?" she asks with a smile.

"like I said, I'm not the kind of girl that takes advantage of drunk girls for sex" not you anyhow.

"well… what if I wasn't drunk?" she asks quietly and I feel her legs slowly tangle with mine under the blankets on top of us. "… what if _I_ wanted to take advantage of _you_?" she asks, inching even closer to me.

"well, that might be hard since I'm not drunk" I tell her.

"okay, well maybe we can come to an agreement then…" she offers as she manages to get _even_ closer to me. I'm surprised there's still space between us.

"what would this agreement entail?" I whisper.

"that what we do over the course of the next few hours… never leaves this room" she negotiates. And I think it over. Maybe giving into seduction isn't that bad.

"I think I can deal with that" I say as I lean forward and finally close the gap between us by pressing my lips down on to hers for the long awaited kiss. I feel her start kissing me back and I know where this is going. I put my hand on her side and push her over as I lean on to her, our lips still attached. I can feel her hands tangle in my hair and hold me closer as things start to heat up. Soon enough she's pulling my top over my head and I do the same to her. As soon as they're gone I'm pulling the draw strings to the pyjama pants she's wearing, which just happen to be mine. She undoes my jeans and we both quickly rip off our own pants and get back into bed right away. I lay down on top of her and make my way to her neck kissing and sucking on what ever I can.

"Ashley" she breathes out which only urges me to continue my work. I kiss down her neck, down her chest, and all the way down to her stomach. But before I can go further, Spencer sits up and pulls me up, placing a kiss on my mouth. She reaches behind me and manages to get my bra undone in record time. Since she's sitting up I take this opportunity to do the same for her. Throwing away our undergarments to the floor we quickly lay back down, but instead of going back to what I was doing Spencer flips me over and straddles my waist as she leans down to start kissing me. Her kisses seem so hungry as she kisses me harder and harder every time, and starts moving down my body faster and faster. Her kisses may be hungry, but I feel like every time she kisses me my skin is on fire.

I feel her hook her fingers on my panties and start pulling them down. I look down and in the dim lighting I can see the smirk stricken across her face. I lift my hips to help her out, and as soon as I'm completely naked Spencer makes her way back up to my head and presses her lips down onto mine again. Now her lips may be up here, but her hand is definitely down there. I feel her rubbing my centre faster and faster, and harder and harder with each stroke.

"mm Spence" I manage to moan out. I feel her smirk against my lips and I know she's not drunk, and I'm glad. I want her to remember this tomorrow morning. Without warning I feel Spencer push two fingers into me and starts pumping them in and out. God it feels good. "oh god" I breathe out again.

"you can call me Spencer" she says smartly as she continues her duties. Within minutes I'm sent over the edge and I feel Spencer's had slow down and come to a stop. But while her hands have finished her mouth is still working on my lips. But it's time for that to stop.

I flip us over and push her onto her back with a little bit of force. I start kissing her lips then slowly and torturously start kissing down the rest of her body. It's time to show her why I have no problem getting girls.

I make my way further and further down and without hesitation I pull off her panties and bury my head between her legs allowing my mouth to come in contact with her centre.

"Ashley!" she screams out. Yeah, I'm that good. I continue what I'm doing and I can feel Spencer squirming beneath my touch. And I love it. With no more than a moan I feel Spencer go over the edge and her body go limp. I kiss her thighs and kiss up her body again and lay down beside her. She gives me a small smile and leans over to kiss me on the lips again, I don't think I can get enough of that.

I glance over at the clock and see it's already 4:38am. "we should probably get a little bit of sleep" I whisper to her. She gives me a small nod and moves closer to my body and wraps us in the warm sheets. She takes my arm and wraps it around her body and digs her face into the crook of my neck. I hear her breathing even out and I can tell she's already asleep.

But I couldn't. I couldn't fall asleep, not with her in my arms. I couldn't risk falling asleep and waking up only to find out it was a dream. I couldn't risk it. So I didn't. I spent the next 2 hours with my arms wrapped around the beautiful blonde, not getting a wink of sleep. Not even caring.

_Do you know why we take advantage of people? ...because we can. But have you ever asked yourself what would happen if they let you take advantage of them? I did tonight. I realized that if they let you take advantage, it's not really taking advantage. _

_It's want._


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Why do I let this happen

**Chapter 9: Why do I let this happen?**

_So there's this word in the human language, I don't know if you've heard of it or not, but it's something couples usually say to each other when they get to that point in their relationship where they really want each other more than ever. Yes, I'm sure you know the word I'm talking about. The word is four letters long and songs have been created in its honour. And about 99 percent of the time it's great. Actually that's a lie, about 50 percent of the time it's great. The other 50 – the most excruciatingly painful time of your life. See, this one word can cause so much trouble. It's either you say it too much or you don't say it enough. Either way it'll fuck you over in the end. I mean just take my life as an example. That word is nothing but trouble._

…_so how come I can't get enough of it?_

By the time 7:00am came around I decided it would be best that I get up and take a shower. So I reluctantly left Spencer in bed. She was naked under the sheets, but she looked gorgeous. So I couldn't resist. I got my cell phone and snapped a picture of her looking so adorable just laying in that bed. She was radiating beauty and I wasn't about to pass a picture of that up. I don't know if it was the sex or the night full of Spencer drunkenly spilling her secrets, but I just don't want this to end. I don't want to have to leave her. Maybe when this is all over I won't have to.

Who am I kidding? Of course I have to, just look at who we are and what we represent. But maybe, just maybe she feels the same way I do. And maybe, _just maybe_, I could love her…

After getting the picture I hopped in the shower, wondering what it was going to be like when she woke up.

……

(Spencer's POV)

I woke up to the sight of an empty bed, and the sounds of a running shower. I look at the clock and I see it's a little after 7:00am. I think back to last night… and I don't know what to think. It was amazing, and scary at the same time, but I wouldn't trade last night – this morning, I mean – for the world.

I know Ashley's in the shower so I take this time to get the clothes she leant me last night, and put them back on, and just as I'm putting on the last article of clothing I hear a knock at the door. Maybe it's room service or something. Ashley seems like the romantic type. But I open the door to see a girl about my age.

"can I help you?" I ask as I try to fix my crazy sex hair I probably have. This girl certainly isn't the maid service. She seems frozen for words and I hear the shower turn off and the door quickly open.

"who are you?" she asks. How do I describe this?

"Spencer." I tell her. "I…I go to school with Ashley" I tell her. That's pretty harmless right?

"who's there Spence?" Ashley asks as she walks out in nothing but a towel and wet hair as she opens the door further to see who it is. "Mac?" she asks. Oh shit, Mac? As in Mackenzie King? Her ex? Oh fuck.

"hey Ashley, this your new girlfriend!?" she practically shouts at 7:00am. Ashley steps in front of me trying to hide me a little. No point.

"Mac, calm down" Ashley tries to conceal everything.

"no fuck that!" she yells again. "I knew you were cheating on me with some girl! I knew you were lying to me!"

"Mac, it's not like that!" Ashley tries to convince her. "why don't you come in and we'll talk about this"

"No" she flat out says. "you know I came down here to smooth things out, but here you go just fucking things up again Ashley. It's what you're good at. So you know what? You can take your cheating ass and that skanky slut back to bed because I'm done. I'm done with you, I'm done with her. And as far as I'm concerned I never want to see your face again" she says angrily and walks away.

"Mac!" Ashley calls out but she's gone. She shuts the door quietly and turns back around to see me. "sorry about that" she apologizes. "I didn't want to bring you into that"

"I thought you said that you two were broken up" I say.

"we are. It's just when I broke it off, she thought it was because I was with someone else – which I wasn't, but I guess when she saw you, she thought…"

"… we were together" which we aren't… I don't think. No of course we aren't. I have to stop talking to myself. "look, I better go. Madison's going to blow a gasket if I'm late. I'll… I'll get your clothes back to you later" I say and go to pick up my other clothes.

"yeah, sure… no rush" she says. I grab my clothes from last night and practically run out the door. I don't even know what to make of this moment right now, or what to make of last night and this morning. She saved me from probably being raped, she let me stay in her room all night, I had so much fun talking with her all night, and this morning, oh god this morning, it was great, but when Mac showed up everything went downhill.

I step into the elevator with my clothes and bag in hand, still slightly confused. What do I want from Ashley. Kissing? Sex? …a relationship? I guess the question shouldn't be 'what do I want _from_ Ashley?' rather 'what kind of relationship do I want _with_ Ashley?', because I'm too far in to want anything less.

………

(Ashley's POV)

As soon as Spencer's gone I go to get changed but half way through I hear a knock at the door. Maybe she forgot something. I open the door with my best smile but it fades as soon as I see who it really is.

"hey Meg come on in" I tell her as my excitement level goes from a 10 to a 1.

"well don't sound so disappointed" she says teasingly.

"sorry… I thought you were… I thought you were someone else" I cover.

"what ever, so are you ready for the last 4 and a half hours of the competition? You better put your sluttiest outfit on Ashley Davies, cause you are going down!"

"Megan, sweetie, I am the reigning champion for 3 years in a row, there's no way you're going to win against me"

"hey, you forfeited last year cause of your girlfriend, so it doesn't count." She argues.

"what ever, the point is, you haven't won once"

"Well all of that is about to change in just a few hours. Now come on, let's head down. The finals are starting soon, and I want to get some extra points in." she tells me. "oh and would put a shirt on? You're creeping me out" she says looking down at my outfit. I realize I'm only wearing jeans and a bra.

"hey, I'm just saving those lucky girls some time" I say jokingly.

"yeah, yeah" she says throwing my shirt at me.

………

After we finished getting some last minute points in Meg and I grabbed some seats up front in the auditorium for the show. It was between three schools. One of which was King High. I didn't really ask what other schools there were, don't really care anyways.

So thinking back this weekend I managed to get points from about 7 different girls, which isn't bad at all. I just hope they don't find out about anything. By the time the auditorium was full the competition was just starting.

"ladies and gentle men, welcome to the 17th annual Los Angeles Cheerleading competition. Today we have three very talented schools left. We have King High" she says and we start cheering for our own school. "… Jefferson Senior, and finally St. Joseph Catholic School" she says. Great, just perfect, St. Joe's is Mac's school. I guess I should have realized she'd been in the finals since she was up so early this morning. "so without further ado, let's start the show. First up is Jefferson Senior…" she announces and a few girls come out on stage jumping and screaming.

As Jefferson does their routine my eyes fall to the side, behind the curtain where I can see Spencer watching the competition, but her gaze soon falls to my eyes and I see her give me a small smile. I smile back, but not too big, anything noticeable and Meg is sure to find out.

After the routine is over, they get their applause and outcomes the announcer again.

"thank you Jefferson Senior, up next we have King High, give it up everybody!" she says and walks off stage and within seconds we see our cheerleaders all happy and jumping around. Meg and I give an extra loud cheer for our school, probably embarrassing ourselves, but what ever, I don't really plan on getting anymore points. The girls take their positions on stage and Spencer glances our way, trying not to be so noticeable, hopefully she won't screw up with me watching the entire time, like in practice.

The music starts and the girls start moving and my eyes never leave Spencer once, and when ever she can, she looks my way, and the thing is… she's hitting every move like she's been doing this for years. I guess sex really helps people focus.

By the end of the routine, they've pretty much won over the crowd and beat out Jefferson for sure, but there's just Mac's school left. Just as King High cheerleaders are leaving the stage the other squad comes out to get ready and I see Mac purposely bump into Spencer, nearly knocking her to the ground.

"watch it" Spencer says.

"why don't you watch it" Mac bites back. "slut" she adds.

"whoa, I know you did not just call my best friend a slut!" Madison says stepping in between the two of them.

"oh don't worry, I'm sure you're a slut too" Mac says to Madison. Fuck, this really isn't looking good.

"bitch!" Madison yells out for everyone to hear. Which is quickly followed by Mac slapping Madison across the face. And at this point Spencer's lost it. She pushes Mac to the floor and soon both squads get in on the entire fight.

"come on" I tell Meg as we both jump up on stage to help the judges separate the girls.

Just as we get up on stage I see Mac slap Spencer and Spencer's about to attack back, but Meg and I quickly intervene. I manage to hold back Mac as Meg stops Spencer from going anywhere.

"stop Mac!" I yell as I grab her and hold her back.

"let me go!" she yells.

"fine!" I yell as I drag her back stage and behind the curtains, away from everything else. "there. Now stop it! Don't screw this up!"

"screw this up?" she laughs angrily. "screw it up for who, Ashley? For me or for you?"

"what are you talking about?" I ask.

"oh please, I know you're with that blonde chick out there!"

"Mac, come on, it's not like that. I didn't sleep with her while we were dating!"

"…did you kiss her?" she asks. How do I answer this? I can't exactly… lie. I know she sees my hesitation and she's still expecting an answer. "did you?" she asks more quietly, on the brink of tears.

"yes" I reply and I see the first of many tears to come, fall.

"I knew it. I knew it!" she says gradually getting louder.

"Mac, come on…"

"no! how could you? You cheated on me and you lied to me? You said you loved me!"

"yeah so did you! You said you loved me too!" I yell back at her, letting my anger get the better of me. "and what did I get? I got a secret relationship with my girlfriend who was too ashamed to tell her friends that she was in love with me! No wonder I cheated on you! I can't be kept a secret Mackenzie, I just can't!"

"then you shouldn't have said you loved me" she says lowly and does the only thing she can. She walks away.

_See, it's that damn word again. That word that gets me into so much trouble. Mac says I shouldn't have said it in the first place because she thinks that I didn't mean it. But I did. But what if I said it to her, but it was meant for someone else?_


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Why are we so afraid of love

**Chapter 10: Why are we so afraid of love?**

_What is it about love that scares us so much? Is it how the people around us judge our love? Or is it how our love is constantly being tested by the situations that surround it? Maybe… just maybe we're afraid of love so much because we're afraid of the fact that someone in this world could actually love us back._

"alright Davies, it's the moment of truth" Meg says, unaffected by the whole thing a few hours ago. It's like she completely forgot that our exes when at it on stage. Which by the way they were disqualified for. Jefferson won by default. "come on, get your phone out!" she says excitedly.

"alright, alright" I say as I pull my phone out of my back pocket. One by one we go through each picture and determine how many points we get. It looks like Meg was able to get a lot of small points from kissing and such, which subsequently lead to her being put in the lead, by a landslide.

"alright, well Ashley, it looks like your reign of terror is over! I have 1750 points and you only have 1250! Ha!"

Damn, I really shouldn't have spent that day staring at Spencer during her practice. It really set me back. "there's got to be some sort of mistake!" I say, but we both know there's no way I can win now. I look through my picture on my phone trying to see if I can scrounge up some extra points. But when I come to the last photo, I pause. It's the picture of Spencer, naked in my bed. To tell you the truth, this could win the game for me and put me in the lead for another year.

But I just can't do that. I couldn't do that to Meg, or Spencer, or even Mac, I just can't. I flip my phone close and look up at Meg. "well I guess you got lucky this year…" I say and Meg jumps up on my bed and starts jumping up and down repeatedly, chanting "I win" over and over again. I toss my phone down onto the bed and get up to get some Advil and water, it's going to be a long trip back with Megan's gloating and bragging.

"oh hey, let me see your phone, I think we might have made out with the same girl. Some chicks are just sluts" she says, even though we're the biggest sluts of them all.

"yeah, what ever" I wave her off as I let her go through the pictures on my phone, but then I realize that picture of me and Spencer is on there. "actually wait!" I yell, but as soon as I realize what I've done I turn around to see Meg's frozen face.

"…is this…?" fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, please don't tell me she found it. Please, by some miracle let her think it's some other chick.

"Megan"

"what the fuck Ashley?! Is this a picture of Spencer?!" she yells especially loudly. "are you fucking kidding me?! After everything you've said, after everything we've done, you go ahead and do this? Are you out of your mind?! How could you do something like this?! This is my ex-girlfriend!" she yells.

"Meg, it's not what it looks like!"

"oh really? Cause it looks like you fucked my ex-girlfriend!" she yells throwing my phone at me, and hard. I move out of the way only to have the phone smashed against the wall. I don't think I've ever seen Meg this angry.

"Meg!" I yell angrily.

"fuck you, Ashley!" she yells harshly.

"Megan, look… I'm sorry!"

"no don't you dare apologize to me! You don't get to. You don't get to apologize and think everything's going to be all right! You don't get to feel guilt free! Not this time"

"…" I don't say anything in fear of saying the wrong thing. But I've realized in a situation like this that there really is no _right_ thing to say.

"well?" Megan asks.

"well _what_, Meg?" I ask back. "what do you expect me to say? You don't want me to apologize, you don't want to hear how I feel… what _do_ you want me to say?"

"I want you to say that this is all just some nightmare, because _I know_ that my best friend wouldn't dare sleep with my ex-girlfriend"

"well I can't" I say. "just like you can't say you never dated my worst enemy..." I argue back.

"don't change the subject! I dated Spencer when you hated her – yes, but you… you slept with her _after _I dated her, _while_ you still apparently hate her. Do you see the problem?"

"yes, I know! It's fucked up! I get it, but I couldn't help it"

"couldn't help it?" she yells. "you've been complaining about her everyday for the last year, and now you sleep with her one time, _one time_, and everything changes!?"

"it wasn't just this one time…" I start.

"you've slept with her before?" Meg asks.

"what? No! it's just… this whole thing… me and Spencer, it started a week or two ago. Before this weekend"

"so you've been hiding this from me?"

"just like you hid your relationship from me?" I retaliate, and I know I shouldn't get her even more angry, but I can't help it. If anything I'm just digging a deeper hole for myself.

"why, Ashley? Why would you start this knowing that this is how it would turn out? Why would you purposely shoot yourself in the foot?"

"because… I don't know! I just got sucked into her. I don't know what she did, or how she did it, but I just felt the need to be with her, I wanted to do it, I wanted it even knowing how it would affect me" I tell her. "Meg, why did you and Spencer break up… I need to know! It's eating away at me"

"you want to know why we broke up?" Megan laughs. "we broke up because I was in love with her… but she had feelings for _you_"

"what? I wasn't even talking to her then"

"I know! That's the worst part. I would always talk about you and how important our friendship was, and I don't know… I guess I told her too much because she started to fall for you. And when I told her I loved her, I was returned with a 'thank you'. I knew she loved you but I just didn't want to believe it. So I just… ended things"

"look, Meg, I'm sorry, but that wasn't my fault-"

"-no you're right!" she cuts me off angrily. Something tells me I'm not going to like the next part. "it was my fault for falling in love and it was my fault for befriending someone like _you"_ excuse me?

"whoa, what's the supposed to mean?"

"it means I should have known that you would have gone and done something like this!"

"done something like what?" I yell and I see her look away, already regretting the words that just left her mouth. "come on Meg, tell me, what did I do?"

"…you went for Spencer even though we agreed to drop everything! I agreed to finally try and get over her if you just stopped harassing her! I was trying so hard to get over the person I loved, but it's not easy when your best friend starts sleeping with her, now is it?!"

"I didn't know you were in love with her! You wouldn't tell me a damn thing about what happened between you, so how was I supposed to know!?"

"I didn't tell you because I thought 'what if Ashley goes to talk to her? What will Spencer do? How fast will they fall in love?' and it didn't matter what I did because you two still ended up together, and I can't stand it! I can't stand how perfect you are for each other!"

"what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about how Spencer is you with blonde hair! She's does the same shit you do, she's perfect for you, and it just kills me…" she says finally breaking down and letting her tears go.

"Megan…" I try but I don't know what to say after that.

"… forget it. Congratulations Ashley, you win the contest. Sleeping with Spencer, what is that? 2000 points? Well good job" she says angrily as she gets her phone from the bed and walks towards the door.

"where are you going? We came here in my car" I tell her.

"I'll find my own way home. Just forget me Ashley. Forget me and fall in love with Spencer, just as fate has planned" she says and shuts the door on her way out.

…………………

I checked out of the hotel a few minutes ago and now I'm walking to my car with my over night bag thrown around my shoulder, sunglasses on. This weekend's been… fucked up, to say the least. But I guess it could have been worse. I mean, someone could have died.

"Aiden, come on!" I hear someone yell. I turn around to see Kyla dragging Aiden away from another group of cheerleaders. Poor guy.

"Aiden" I call out and both Kyla and Aiden spot me.

"hey Ash" Kyla says.

"hey. Aiden, what are you doing here?" I ask.

"oh I drove up to see the finals for Kyla, and I offered to drive her home. My parents let me borrow the Mercedes" he says jiggling the keys a little.

"very nice, but have fun driving home with this one" I say nudging Kyla jokingly.

"hey!" she yells out making both Aiden and I laugh.

"alright, later" I say and wave goodbye as they head to Aiden's parent's car.

As I head over to my car I press a button on the key chain to unlock it and then another button to retract the hood of the car. As the hood is still moving I throw my bag in the back seat, but before I get in the car I see the King High cheerleaders all loading up the bus, but I see Spencer waiting outside.

I hesitantly walk over, not sure what to think or say at the moment. But here goes nothing.

"usually people get _on_ the bus to get home" I say teasingly.

"yeah, well sitting on that bus for the next 10 minutes before it leaves would mean 10 minutes of evil stares and whispers behind your back" she says, not turning to me yet. At least she's talking to me.

"something happen?" I ask.

"did you miss the fight on stage?" she asks, looking at me, then back at the bus.

"right…"

"yeah well the squad blames me for getting disqualified since that girl bumped into me and started the whole thing" I guess that's actually my fault. I mean it was my ex-girlfriend and her jealousy that started the whole thing.

"well hey… you know… if you want… a spot just cleared up in my car… you could hitch a ride with me" I offer and she turns fully to me.

"ride home with you?" she asks, not too sure of the consequences. "I'm not going to get abandoned at some truck stop, am I?" she asks jokingly. "because you know truckers prey on young, innocent, hot blonde cheerleaders"

"no don't worry, no truck stops but we might have to put you and your giant ego in the trunk" I say jokingly as I grab her bag from her feet, and guide her towards my car.

"well I guess the trunk would be better than the bus" she says with a smile.

"good" I say as we get to my car I toss her bag in the back and get in the car as she gets in the passenger side. "let's get out of here"

…………

We've been driving for a while now, not actually speaking is grounds for a great awkward silence. Especially when you just slept with this person like 10 hours ago. I see her pull out her cell phone and start texting someone. Just like all popular kids she is glued to her phone.

She must have seen the look on my face or read my mind because I see her look up at me and smile apologetically.

"sorry, just texting Madison to let her know I didn't get kidnapped or anything"

"hey, for all you know I could be kidnapping you" I say jokingly.

"better you than some _total_ stranger"

"…so what are you telling Madison? …You took a cab home?" I ask.

"um no, I just told her I got a ride home with Kyla…" she says and closes her phone. "so… she found out didn't she?"

"who?"

"Megan" she says as she leans back in the seat looking tired as ever. I'm sure she is, she only got about 2 hours of sleep last night.

"… how'd you know?"

"I kind of figured when I noticed she wasn't in the car with us" she explains.

"yeah, well, I'll talk to her when we get back"

"something tells me it's not going to be that easy"

"yeah, I've got that feeling too" I say, focusing on the road. "it's just this whole thing is a lot more complicated than I thought it would be"

"… which means Meg also told you why we broke up" Spencer says taking her gaze off of me and onto the road.

"she might have shed some light on it…" I say and Spencer looks away shyly. "so… uh, how much of last night do you remember?"

"all of it" she says without thinking twice.

"so you remember getting drunk, and me carrying you back to the hotel?"

"yes"

"do you remember staying up till 4:30am, telling me your deepest darkest secrets?" I ask with a smirk.

"unfortunately, yes" she replies with the same smirk, thinking she knows what I'm going to ask next.

"do you remember…" time to throw in a joke. "going to that strip club and showing me your pole dancing skills?"

"what?! That _so _never happened" she says with a small giggle.

"okay fine… do you remember what you did… _after_ you spilled your secrets to me?" I ask quirking an eyebrow in her direction.

"don't you mean what _we_ did after I spilled my secrets?" she corrects me telling me she does remember.

"I suppose"

"well yes, yes I do remember"

"that good huh?" I ask teasingly and she gives me alight push. "your silence only confirms my theory" I tell her and she replies with a scoff. Once again, confirming my theory, and she knows it.

"okay, yes, it was good. What ever, things will probably change when we get back so it doesn't matter"

"oh really, and how are they going to change? Are you going to magically forget this morning?" I ask.

"that's not it. I mean we could have hot, steamy, teeth ripping clothes, fogging up windows, screaming at the top of your lungs, sex – right now" she says in her most seductive voice, making my breath hitch in my throat. "but you know that when we get back to school it'll be like none of this ever happened"

"maybe for you, but my life doesn't work that way"

"so what? You're just going to admit to the whole school you slept with your worst enemy?"

"no… but I would admit to the school I slept with Spencer Carlin. Who says you have to be my worst enemy?"

"um, how about _the rest of the school_?" she says like it's obvious.

"you mean the school that we control? Let's face it Spencer, you control one half and I control the other half."

"it doesn't just work like that Ashley"

"says who?"

"Says me!" she yells now.

"well then it's people like you who are keeping people like us from being together!"

"being together?" Spencer laughs. "since when do you want us to be together? I thought you were all about the sex"

"something tells me you _know_ I'm not all about the sex" and she knows I'm right. I know Meg told her everything about me, which means she knows who I am and why I do what I do.

"well I'm saying what we had this morning, was _just_ sex"

"sex is never _just_ sex!" I yell. "_especially_ this morning. You know it meant more than just that. For you and for me"

"so what are you trying to say Ashley?"

"what I'm trying to say is I know why you and Meg broke up"

"okay, so?" she says like it's no big deal. "so what if Megan told you I'm in love with you?... _was_ in love with you… what ever."

Did she just say… love?

_What is it about love that scares us so much? Yeah, it's definitely the fact that we're afraid that someone in this world could actually love us back. But the fact that someone could love me back scares me right there. Because the fact that I used the word 'back' implies that the love is reciprocated. Which only leads me to one conclusion…_

_I'm in love with her too. It's just as simple as that._

**So there it is, I'm sure you all could tell Meg was going to find out with the picture and all, but I thought I would add that little 'love' twist in the end, hope you enjoyed it thoroughly. Lol.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Why can't I resist her?**

_Do you know what the definition of 'resist' is? Resist _- _To remain firm against the actions, effects, or force of; withstand, to keep from giving in to or enjoying. To have control. Which is all what I'm trying to do right now, but it's not working out too well._

"okay, so?" she says like it's no big deal. "so what if Megan told you I'm in love with you?... _was_ in love with you… what ever."

Okay, so Meg must have skipped that part, because I would have definitely remembered if she had said love or not. But it's how I react to it that determines it all. I could freak out and tell her I didn't know that she 'loved' me, or I could just go along with it and say I knew it all along. But the thing is, if I choose to go along with it, what does it mean to me? Does it mean I love her back? It can't. I mean I've only kissed her a few select times and I slept with her once.

But I have to remind myself, I kissed her once for black mail and went back again… because I wanted to.

"well which is it? Love… or lov_ed_?" I ask saying it slowly, because I don't really want to have to repeat it.

"does it really matter?"

"yes!" I'm quick to reply.

"why?"

"because maybe it determines how I feel about you…" I say awkwardly.

"okay… so what if I said I was over you?" she asks curiously.

"oh no, no, no, no" I quickly deny her. "no what ifs… I'm not going to answer to both scenarios. So which is it?"

"both I guess" she replies honestly. Well played. "I mean how do you ever get over someone you love, if you've never truly been given the opportunity to love them and be loved back?"

"so then what are you saying?" I ask, not actually expecting an answer. "what if I gave you the opportunity, would you jump at it?"

"oh no, no, no, no" she quickly mocks me. "no what ifs" she tells me with a slight smile on her face.

"funny" I reply sarcastically. I find it incredibly mind blowing that Spencer could be so open about her feelings towards me, all while keeping her quick wit. Not many people can do that. It's like with every second that goes by she amazes me more and more. That's one of the reasons I told her:

"well maybe I have feelings for you too… maybe I'm in love with you too…"

"maybe?" she questions my choice of words.

"maybe" I confirm.

"oh well see, I'm Spencer Carlin. I don't do maybes"

"oh but you choose to be in love with me and over me at the same time?" I ask seriously.

"indecisiveness is not the same as maybe" she replies.

"in this world it is" I inform her.

"well the fact that my head is telling me no, but my heart is screaming yes, is not a '_maybe_'. It's saying that I want to be with you so badly but I can't! It's saying that being in love with you is so totally wrong, but I so desperately want it to be right. It's saying-"

"-it's saying a lot of shit" I cut her off. "but it's _doing_ absolutely nothing! Spencer you can't keep thinking everything through! For once in your life you have to be impulsive and just follow your heart!"

"I did! _Last night_!" she reminds me… in a loud tone.

"yeah, and all it took was a few bottles of liquor" I add.

"well what do you expect from me Ashley? I can't be the popular head cheerleader who's also a lesbian! I just can't!"

"yes you can!" I yell. "but you have to make it that way! _You_ have to do something about it, or it will never change!"

"then why didn't you do something about it?!" she yells and I suddenly can't think. "from what you've told me and from what I've heard, you were me 2 years ago! But you chickened out!"

"no, I didn't!" I yell back.

"that's why you gave up and joined the reject group" she states, only angering me further.

"For your _fucking_ information, I didn't _give up,_ I told everyone who I was and _chose_ to leave the so called popular kids. I just couldn't comprehend what they stood for. And finally, one day I realized they stood for absolutely nothing. All they did was stand there and looked pretty. I realized I was so much better than them on so many levels"

"so what? You think you're better than me?" she asks, taking offence to everything I'm saying.

"no. I think _you_ are better than you. I think that you're hiding underneath some façade pretending to be someone you're not. I mean take your family for example! They know you're gay, but you're friends don't? You know something's got to be fucked up if that's what it's come to"

"my friends and my sexuality have nothing to do with this"

"it has everything to do with this!" I exclaim. "if you're friends knew you were gay you would have absolutely no trouble saying you were in love with me!"

"no!" she yells seriously. "that isn't true!"

"isn't it!?"

"my friends don't have jurisdiction in my life like that!"

"sure they don't" I reply sarcastically, knowing it's just egging her on at this point.

"fine! I love you! Are you happy? I still love you! I loved _before _I dated Meg, I love you _while_ I dated Meg and I _still_ love you!" she says all by herself. And it's like as soon as she's finished yelling at the top of her lungs the car goes silent. The quiet is almost deafening because it's so sudden. So it gives me the opportunity to think. She's everything I wanted in a girl. A girl who's not afraid to yell back at me, not afraid to stand up to me, a girl who doesn't need me to tell her what to think. And I come to a conclusion, so I break the silence with words of my own.

"… I love you too" I reply softly.

……………………

The car ride was relatively quiet after that. I mean things just became so awkward and I had no idea where the hell we stood. I mean she loves me, I love her. So then what now? That fact that the words have been spoken change nothing about the circles we hang out in. Just like before she still has her friends and I still have mine. And it is still one of the seven deadly sins to like each other, let alone, love each other.

I drive her back to school knowing that all of the girls are getting dropped off there by the bus so that their parents can pick them up. Of course since we left before the bus, we arrived before the bus. I park in an empty spot in the school parking lot and we both get out of the car. I hand Spencer her bag and lean on the car as Spencer spots her parents and gives them a little wave, but doesn't take off yet.

"so… thanks for saving me from a bunch of pissed off cheerleaders" she says, and it's the first words she's spoken in an hour.

"anytime…" I reply. She's about to turn around and head home when I stop her. "Spencer, where does this leave us?" I ask. I was never one for not being forward in conversations.

"I… I don't know…" she shakes her head. "where do you think it leaves us?"

"I'd like to think it leaves us closer together" I reply and out of the corner of my eye I can see Spencer's mom watching us. She's totally waiting for us to kiss. I swear, she's probably one of those match maker moms.

"I would like to think that too. But it doesn't"

"well maybe it does… but maybe none of our friends would know" I say hinting towards something and I think she knows what.

"are you saying what I think you're saying?" she asks with a raised eye brow.

"how the fuck should I know? I'm not in your head" I reply jokingly, earning a small laugh out of her.

"well it sounds like to me, that you want to be closer, even if it means no one else knows" she guesses.

"I guess that's the distance I go for love…" I tell her.

"well I guess that's the distance I go for love too…" she tells me.

"can I call you?" I ask.

"sure, but the better question is '_will_ you call me?'." She replies with her quick wit. Have I told you how much that wit of hers amazes me?

"better yet why don't you come over for dinner!" Paula yells out from 30 feet away. And both Spencer and I start laughing.

"my mom has super hearing" she admits jokingly. "so what do you say? You hungry?" she asks while stifling an ever so stylish yawn.

"how about a rain check. You look like you could use some sleep before school tomorrow" I suggest.

"Are you sure?"

"yeah" I reply.

"alright" she says with a small smile. "call me" she says with a wink.

"I will"

And with that Spencer turned around to go home with her mom, while I went to my large empty house. Scratch that. By the time I got back I was just in time to see Aiden dropping off Kyla.

"hey" I say.

"hey" she says back as I open the door and we both enter. "so are you going to tell me what happened or what?" she asks.

"what are you talking about?" I ask as I don't even stop for her, I just continue the venture up to my room.

"I'm talking about how Meg didn't go home with you, but instead decided to tag along with us!" I guess that's how she got home. I really should talk to her, but I really don't want to.

"uh, we just had a fight. I'll talk to her later" I say and enter my room, closing the door behind me so Kyla can't come in. As soon as I'm in I flop down onto my bed and crawl under the covers. The last time I was in a bed I didn't get any sleep. But then again the last time I was in a bed I had a gorgeous girl beside me.

…………

ah, nothing says a nice nights sleep like 12 consecutive hours of no interruptions. I look at the clock and it's already 6:00am, usually that'd be really early for me but I think I've had enough sleep. I silently exit my room and make my way down the hall to where Kyla is still sleeping I enter her room and quickly steal her phone. I know she has Spencer's cell phone number.

As soon as I copy down the number into my phone I send Spencer a text message.

'**Morning beautiful – Ash'**

Since I'm sure she's not awake yet I put my phone down on my table and went to take a shower. By the time I had gotten back I saw I already had a new message. Gee, I wonder who it could be from.

'_Right back at ya'_ Spencer texts back.

Instead of spending all my money on text messaging I decided to call her, at least I know she's awake.

"hey" she answers in a scratchy-early-morning voice. Love those.

"hey, get enough sleep last night?"

"oh, lots." She replies. "but I have to admit, I do miss the night we spent together"

"I bet you do" I say slyly.

"not just that" she says like it's obvious. "I had fun talking to you that night"

"Spencer, all you did was tell me your secrets, and that's only because you were drunk."

"well maybe we should spend another night together and you could… tell me all of your secrets" she proposes.

"secrets? I don't have any secrets" I lie through my teeth.

"everyone has secrets" she says.

"everyone also has regrets, but no one talks about those"

"hm, that's because talking about regrets is depressing" she counters.

"that is so true, but I just wanted to distract you from the fact you want to extract revenge on me for knowing all of your secrets" I say making her laugh a little.

"well I have to say you did an excellent job. Because for all of 6 seconds I completely forgot about wanting to know all your secrets"

"6 seconds? Damn, I need to work on my distraction skills"

"well maybe after school today you can practice your distraction skills on me"

"after school? Don't you have cheerleading?" I ask.

"we're taking the week off since we just finished the competition. Plus, I still think some of the girls are a little angry at me."

"okay so then how about after school we can come back to my place"

"Kyla won't mind?"

"don't worry, Kyla's usually busy with Aiden after school"

"okay sounds good. But I still want to hear your secrets" she says, catching on to my master plan.

"damn, and I was doing so good. What was that? Like 15 seconds?"

"something like that" she says with a small chuckle. "so listen I better start getting ready for school. I've got to look my best, you know I have a reputation to uphold"

"… or maybe you're trying to impress a certain hot brunette" I hint at.

"please, I've never even thought of Madison that way" she says jokingly.

"that's hilarious" I say sarcastically.

"I thought so" she says with a hearty laugh.

"alright, well go get hot for me" I say not even realizing the double meaning. "… and then get ready for school"

"maybe I will" she says slyly. "bye Ash"

"bye Spence" I say and hang up the phone. And might I add I do so with a smile. Not because I'm hanging up on her, but because I'm happy. It's been a long time since I've been happy. Actually, it's been a long time since I've been _this_ happy.

…………………

By the time I arrived to school and took a seat down with my friends I finally realized my best friend still hates me. And yes it is my fault, but I have no idea what to do to fix things.

Fuck, I haven't even seen Megan today. "hey do you guys know where Meg is?" I ask the group of people I'm sitting with. Most of them shake their head in response… most of them.

"she's sick today" Stephanie responds. "she probably caught some STD from all the girls you slept with this weekend" she says teasingly.

"find anyone worth sleeping with more than once?" Charlie asks, and I can only think back to the girl I had an amazing night with.

"maybe one girl" I say not giving away too much information.

"anyone we know?" Charlie asks.

"… nah, she goes to some school out in the middle of nowhere, but what ever"

"and Meg?"

"I think she's having ex-girlfriend issues" I reply.

"ex-girlfriend?" Steph asks.

"uh…" before I can make up another excuse the morning bell rings, signalling all students to go to homeroom. Maybe I should just skip and figure things out with Meg first. I'm about to walk off campus and back to my car when I spot a certain blonde eyeing me.

I see her separate from her friends and I hold back from leaving right now. As soon as all the students are in class Spencer and I are left alone in an empty hallway.

"looking pretty hot there" I say taking a step closer to her.

"really? Do you think Madison will like it?" she asks jokingly.

"hm, not sure, but I know this hot brunette does" I reply as I take another step closer and put my hands on her waist. She let's her hands sit on my waist as she leans back against the lockers behind her.

"well good, because I was actually just trying to impress you" she whispers.

"really?" I ask fakely. "I would have never guessed"

"yeah well, I knew you weren't that smart"

"hey! I'll have you know I pulled off an 87 in art last semester"

"Ashley, sweetie? That was _art_ class. It's one of the few classes where it doesn't require you to memorize information"

"I know… that's why I got an 87" I say making the both of us laugh.

"so listen, do you want to spend our free period together in the library?"

"well I was thinking more in the back of my car, but the library is kinky too" I say slyly.

"no" she says giving me a little slap on the arm. "I kind of wanted to talk to you about the election"

Oh fuck the election! I totally forgot about that. Crap, I still have to do all that shit for it too. I need to stop swearing so much. What ever, I give myself permission to swear in situations like these. Maybe I should just drop out of the competition. It's stupid anyways.

"earth to Ashley" Spencer says waving her hands in front of my face.

"yeah sorry. Deep thinking going on in this mind of mine"

"so that's what's in there?" she asks teasingly as she grabs onto my head and starts moving it around and tapping on it jokingly.

"okay, okay, very funny" I say taking her hands back in mine. "so free period? The back of the library?"

"I'll see you there" she says and stands up straight. I'm about to lean in and kiss her – you know, really kiss her for the first time since we've been together – when the bell rings signalling home room's over. We quickly push apart as a flood of students make their way into the hall way.

"bye" she mouths to me and starts walking off down the hall. I see her turn around subtly just before meeting with her friends and she gives me a quick wink. What is this girl doing to me? Actually, a better question would be what was I doing before seeing Spencer again? Oh well. I should probably get to class.

……….

By third period, my free period, I finally remembered what I was going to do. Go see Megan. Which I think is pretty important, don't you? More important than seeing Spencer right now. But I should still tell her.

I head to the back of the library just as planned to see the blonde I've been awaiting all morning.

"hey" I say taking a seat beside her, right in the corner of the library.

"hey" she replies.

"so listen I don't think I can st-" I say but I'm cut off by the feeling of her hand on my thigh.

"sorry what were you saying?" she asks with a smirk as she lets her hand run wild on my leg and her lips attach to my neck.

"Spencer, what are you doing? We're in the library" I tell her and I try to push her away, but I notice my hands and arms aren't working. The things this girl does to me…

"oh, I know" she says as she continues her ministrations.

"you can't wait until after school?" I ask.

"not really"

"Well look, I was actually… going to go… see someone" I try to say, but my breathing seems to be a problem right now.

"no you weren't" she corrects me. "you were going to stay here and spend time with me"

"I was, was I?"

"I believe so…" she says and only kisses my neck harder. Oh god…

"yeah… okay" I say as I start kissing her neck now. Damn, what was I doing before? Oh well.

_I just can't seem to resist this girl. And I'm okay with it._


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Why do we hide who we truly are?**

**Now, I don't know if should be worried or not… but several ppl have referred to this story as their "drug" LOL, and how they have addictions and such. Just let me guys know if you need another hit… yes I know that was lame. Enjoy!**

_Have you ever been to one of those masquerade balls, where everyone wears masks concealing their face and who they really are. I've always just had the urge to rip off their mask and reveal to the world who exactly is behind that mask. Who is trying to hide and why. But what I realized is that in this world, you don't need a mask. Deceit and lies act as masks for everyone. People lie about who they are and what they believe in so that they become just another face in the crowd. _

…_Just another masked face._

Before I knew it third period was over and it was time for lunch. Spencer and I didn't go any further than making out, but she did a damn good job at distracting me from what I intentionally wanted to do. Which was to go see Meg.

So when the bell rang I darted through the halls, through the quad and just as I was about to go to the parking lot to get into my car I hear some one call me back.

"Ashley!" I turn around to see Steph and a couple other groupies waving me over. I look down at the clock on my cell phone and I guess I have a few minutes to spare. I walk back over to them to see what they want.

"yeah?" I ask.

"what's going on?"

"I'm just going to see Meg"

"okay, well… Mrs. Cho said their was a meeting for all of the election candidates during lunch"

"fuck…" I mutter. I guess I have to make time for this thing. "okay, thanks" I say and take off in the direction of Mrs. Cho's class room. As soon as I get there I see everyone else is already there and Mrs. Cho is talking about something. She stops as soon as she sees me standing awkwardly in the door way.

"you're late"

"sorry" I say and quickly take a seat in the back, where Spencer also happens to be. I take a seat up on the table beside her, pretending to listen to the teacher. I glance over at Spencer and smile at her, as soon as she looks up towards me I look away trying to conceal my laughter. If you're ever bored, this is a fun trick to play on your friends. As soon as she turns her head back to the teacher I look at her again with a smirk, and as soon as she looks my way I turn away pretending like I know absolutely nothing. It's so hard not to laugh in situations like these. As soon as she catches on to what I'm actually doing she gives a quick slap in the leg and goes back to what Mrs. Cho is saying. Seriously, what is she talking about?

I look back over at Spencer and she seems genuinely interested in what the teacher is saying. And it kind of hits me, I've never actually dated anyone who was generally a good student. And that's usually for a reason, it's because I don't go for girls like those, but for once I feel like I'm dating someone who knows where I stand. She knows how I feel and knows how I work, because she feels and works the same way as I do.

"…and that's basically it, so it looks like you guys have a few minutes of lunch left before class starts, I'll see you all next week" Mrs. Cho says and everyone starts packing up.

"whoa, what?" I ask no one in particular and of course no one answers me because they're all popular kids, that I never talk to.

"do you just like… turn off your mind when teachers are talking?" Spencer asks, with attitude. Who ever is left in the room gives off a little snicker before I had a chance to jab back.

"it's a trick I've mastered over the years, now if I could only block _your _voice out…" I retaliate.

"well good luck with blocking my voice out next week during our _final speeches_" she hints at. So that's what this meeting was all about!

"it's not me you're going to have to worry about. After the school hears my speech they're just going to tune you out completely" I fire back.

"we'll see about that" Spencer says with a smirk knowing she actually answered my question secretly.

"I guess we will" I say and head out of the room, leaving Spencer with her popular friends.

By the time I left the class room to go to my locker it was already time to go to last period, which of course I had with Spencer. But once again, I didn't have time to go see Meg and it's killing me.

Last period Mr. Daniels decided to give the class a work period just to catch up on stuff and what not. And we all know that means 'I'm too lazy to teach, so don't bother me for the next hour'. So every time a teacher gives us a work period everyone ends up texting on their phones anyways. So I decided to pull mine out and text a certain blonde.

**Working hard or hardly working? **I send to Spencer. I see Spencer's eyes light up in a message and smile. She discretely turns around to see me and I smile back.

_Not working at all. U?_

**Working hard, of course. Now stop distracting me with your hot body and let me get back to work! **I send jokingly.

_... and I'm not even wearing my short skirt 2day_

**well I'd love 2 see ur short skirt sometime**

_I bet u would. Maybe we could arrange something after school_ Spencer texts me. Shit, I forgot we had plans after school. I was hoping to go see Meg later. Maybe I should take care of the Meg thing first.

**Actually, I was hoping we could get a rain check 2day. I was going 2 go talk 2 Meg.**

_Oh. Okay, call me afterwards? Better yet, stop by afterwards… give my mom something to smile about._

**I'll be there.**

After class finished I didn't even wait to say goodbye to Spencer or anyone. I quickly got my books and drove down to Meg's house. I have no idea what I'm going to say, but I hope when it comes out, it comes out good.

I walk up to her door and with my very shaky hands I knock 5 times. Within a few seconds I see the door swing open and Meg standing there in her pyjamas. I wonder if she still hates me.

"what are you doing here?" she asks. Yep, still hates me. But I don't blame her.

"I-I just came… to talk. About… s-stuff." I stutter out.

"for someone who just wants to talk about 'stuff' you seem pretty jumpy…"

"…like a prison bitch" I add jokingly. Yeah, that came out good… not.

"goodbye Ashley" she says as she's about to shut the door on me.

"wait!" I yell and she slowly opens the door again. "please just can we talk about this? I hate when we're fighting with each other."

"well who's fault is that?"

"okay, I know. The whole situations a little… fucked up. But we could just deal with it now"

"deal with it?" Meg asks hypothetically. "how do you propose we deal with this Ashley? Let me guess, you want to… date Spencer secretly, and me to be perfectly okay with it" she guesses. And yes that is technically what I want, but when she puts it in words like that it just sounds bad.

"I know it looks bad, but Spencer and I…"

"oh please do not finish that sentence with 'love each other'. I don't think I could handle it if you did"

"okay… well we have _feelings_ for each other."

"Ashley, I know you. You don't have feelings for anyone" okay that one hurt. I look at Meg and I see in her face she knows how that makes me feel and she has no remorse what so ever.

"okay you know me. So then you know that I have never said that I have feelings for someone besides Mac!"

"speaking of Mac, how is she? Is she okay with the fact that her ex-girlfriend fell in love with another girl, while they were still dating?"

"Meg, this isn't about Mac…"

"of course this is about Mac! This is about Mac, you, me, Spencer… it's about all of us. You don't get it do you? This one relationship with Spencer… affects _all _of us. Did you really expect otherwise?"

"yes… no… I don't know… What about you? You did the exact same thing before"

"and look how it turned out! I ended up with a broken heart and a screwed up friendship!"

"but it's different with me and Spencer" I try to convince her.

"is it really? Do you really think that because you say you love her that everything will turn out right? Cause please Ashley, tell me. Because I told her I love her but things didn't work out."

"I think it _will_ turn out right" I say confidently.

"and why is that?"

"because she loves me back" and I know that's just one more thing I have over Megan.

"yeah, well sometimes love isn't enough…"

……………………

"hey stranger" Spencer says as she opens up her front door to me.

"hey back at you" I say as I enter her house and give her a kiss on the cheek.

"hey Ashley!" I hear an overly ecstatic voice yell out.

"hey Mrs. C" I smile. I don't think I've ever had a mom like me… not even my own.

"I think she likes you more than she likes me" Spencer mumbles quietly and I laugh. "we're going upstairs mom!" Spencer says and grabs me by the hand to pull me up to her room. As soon as we enter the room Spencer closes the door, only leaving it a crack open and saunters over to me. She pushes me to sit on the bed and straddles my lap. Without a blink she let's her hand rest on my neck and her lips crash down onto mine.

"mm, well hello to you too" I mumble against her lips. I really wasn't expecting this.

"you have no idea how long I've waited to do that to you" she mumbles.

"well please, carry on"

"Spencer!" I hear a voice yell down the hall and quickly a pitter-patter of feet come towards the room. Quickly, Spencer slips her body off of mine and sits down beside me on the bed.

"hey Spence!" a boy says excitedly as he enters the room, quickly followed by another boy.

"um I'm a little busy" Spencer says, obviously referring to me.

"oh we know" the second boy says. "why do you think we came in"

"we came to meet your new girlfriend"

"oh no, we're not-"

"it's not like that, we-" Spencer and I both start talking at the same time.

"-I'm Glen, this is clay" one of the boys says. "we're Spencer's brothers" he says protectively.

"oh…" just what I wanted. More drama.

"so we just thought we'd come in and say hi, get to know you and all" Clay says.

"now's really not a good time" Spencer tries to get rid of them.

"well it's either now or at dinner in front of mom and dad" Glen tells her.

"So I'm Ashley" I say quickly realizing I'd rather have this conversation in private than in front of Spencer's parents. Don't get me wrong, they seem cool for parents, but it gets awkward so easily.

"nice to meet you Ashley… finally" Clay says to me. "so you go to school with Spencer?"

"yeah" I reply easily.

"so what do all of your friends think of you two dating?" Glen asks curiously. Um, how do we answer this one? Only like 2 people know about us. One of them is okay with it, the other hates it.

"it's 50/50 really" I tell them honestly. "some people are okay, some aren't"

"do you participate in any extra-curricular activities?" Clay asks smartly.

"are you a cheerleader?" Glen asks.

"what's your GPA like?" Clay asks.

"do you have any 'blonde' cheerleading friends?" Glen slips in.

"how many times have you gotten detention?" Clay asks yet another question.

"do you have any _single_ 'blonde' cheerleading friends?" Glen asks going more in depth.

"stop!" Spencer yells. I feel a little overwhelmed right now. "what is this? 20 questions? Get out! Ashley and I need to talk" Spencer says forcing them out of her bedroom.

"tell your friends to call me!" Glen yells as a last remark and Spencer slams the door shut. She turns around and we stand in silence for a moment.

"sorry about them" Spencer apologizes.

"it's okay… they're your brothers they have the right to be protective over you"

"right… so back to what we were talking about…" she starts, and here I was thinking she forgot… more like hoping, but what ever. "did you talk to her?"

"yeah…" I say grimly and she already knows how it turned out but she has to ask anyways.

"what did she say?"

"do you want the bad news first… or the_ really_ bad news?" I ask.

"give me the bad news first" she says playing along with it.

"well the bad news is there is absolutely no good news. The really bad news is she hates me… and you… and thinks our relationship is going to be a huge mistake… and that we will never make it because apparently love isn't enough" I tell her all in one breath.

"so that's a no-go on the relationship…" Spencer concludes and I nod back at her. She takes a seat on her bed beside me and we just sit there for a second. "it's pretty bad, huh?" she whispers quietly.

"yeah… it is" I whisper back.

…………………

The next day at school I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I mean I knew Spencer and I would act like we hate each other just like usual but I wasn't sure what was going to happen with Meg. Would she show up to school? Would she ignore me? Would she out me and Spencer as I have threatened to do so many times with her and Spencer? What would she do?

I showed up to school as usual and headed over to the table where all of my friends usually are. I see them crowding around the table. Just as I show up they soon open for me. In the centre of everyone, sitting on top of the table is Meg. Her laugh soon faded to a smile, which soon faded to a frown.

"hey" I say meekly. Without a word she gets up and walks away from me. Typical.

"hey Ash, what's up with you and Meg?" Steph asks as she magically seems to appear at my side.

"it's complicated."

"4 day complicated or more like 4 month complicated?" she asks for clarification.

"well by the way it's going I'm thinking more 4-ever complicated" I tell her and go off to chase Meg.

………

It's been a week now. Meg still isn't talking to me, and Spencer and I are still sneaking around. Don't get me wrong I do love this girl, but things just aren't right anymore. They were never right to begin with I guess.

"Spencer…" I breathe out as I can feel Spencer face buried in my neck and her lips working the parts that make me feel tingly inside.

"mm" she moans as she continues to do what she does best.

"no, Spence… maybe we should hold off for now" I say and pull her up beside me.

"what, why?"

"I don't know… I just don't feel like it"

"is it because of Meg?" she asks. I don't know how she does that, but she seems to know what's on my mind a lot. A lot more than usually people. Maybe she's clairvoyant. Ooh, I'm dating a freaky chick. Been there, done that.

"no, yes, I don't know. I think it's a lot of things."

"well tell me about it" she says turning her body so that she's lying on her side, with her arm holding her head up. She let's her other hand rest on my shirt playing with the small buttons at the front.

"my ex-girlfriend hates me for various reasons, my best friend doesn't want to talk to me ever again and I can't even show the world that I have a beautiful girlfriend!"

"you think I'm beautiful?" she asks with a small smile and I roll me eyes at her giddiness.

"not the point" though she is very hot. "it's just my life is really different from what it used to be like…"

"do you miss your old life?"

"sometimes… I mean, I miss my best friend and having fun with her and talking to her about everything, and I miss Mac because I loved her, just wasn't in love with her."

"and what about me?"

"you? You're the only good thing about my new life. But I can't keep going on pretending that everything is okay. I need things to go back to the way they were" I say and I see Spencer slowly pull her hand away from toying with my buttons, and instead rest closer to her body. Oops. "I need things to go back to the way they were, but I need you there with me" I tell her and grab her hand and hold it in mine as we let it rest on my stomach again.

"okay, so then what now?"

"I don't know. For the first time in a long time, I don't know the answer"

………

"Would Ashley Davies please report to the office" the secretary's voice comes on through the P.A. system. Its lunch and now I can see all my friends looking at me, some laughing, the rest trying not to laugh.

"what did you do now Ashley?" Kyla asks as she walks over and takes a seat on Aiden's lap.

"nothing incriminating, but it's only lunch" I say with a smirk and walk away down to the principal's office. Honestly, I have no idea what I did. So that way I believe I can't actually get in trouble. Just as I'm about to enter the office I feel someone grab my arm from behind and drag me around the corner.

"Spencer?"

"shh" she says quickly and pulls me towards our closet. Yes, since we cleaned it I deem it our closet.

"what's this about?" I ask and I feel her push me against the shelves and press her lips down onto mine.

"this is about… the fact that I couldn't wait until after school to do that" she tells me and goes back to kissing me.

"did you…?"

"I'm in tight with the secretary" she explains. Fake announcement, nice.

"I hope you're not tight with her like you're tight with me…" I tease.

"not even close" she says and starts going for my neck.

"Spencer, come on" I tell her and push her away a little.

"come on, what, Ash?" she stands, hands on hips, not happy. Crap.

"look, I told you yesterday, it's not right"

"so, what? I can't kiss you anymore? What else do you want? To stop touching me? To stop seeing me? Because just say the word and you won't have to do anything with me"

"you know I didn't mean it like that." I tell her. "it's just I need to fix things"

"then fix things!" she yells now. Why is she yelling? Is yelling really necessary? "Ashley I want to be with you! I do, but I can't if you won't let me!"

"I'm trying!" I yell back. But every second I get it's like you're all over me, trying to make out. It's like I can't breathe. You're suffocating me!" Okay, and immediately I regret saying those words. No one ever wants to hear those words mentioned at them.

"I'm suffocating you? Fine! Well don't worry about me anymore! Just come back when you have time!" she yells sarcastically. "go fix your fucked up friendship and start over with your stupid ex-girlfriend. I don't care!"

"I only have a fucked up friendship because of you! And don't you dare call Mac stupid! I fell in love with you while I was with her! Do you know how terrible I felt when that happened? No of course you don't, because you don't deal with the same stuff I deal with"

"I don't deal with the same stuff you deal with!? Really? Because last time I checked, my friendship with my best friend is fucked up because I can't even tell her the truth about me! Oh and it just so happens I fell in love with you when I was dating my last girlfriend! So yes, yes I do deal with the same fucking shit you deal with! Don't you_ dare _for a second think differently!"

I stand here, out of breath from the raised voices, mesmerized by the girl in front of me. To be honest, no one has ever had this kind of fight with me besides Megan. I look at Spencer and the anger in her eyes, but I can't help but feel it fuel my anger even more.

"you know what? Just go back to your fucked up relationships!" she yells, breaking the silence. "good luck trying to fix everything" she spits back at me and walks out of the closet slamming the door for effect. A few seconds later when I feel the coast is clear I walk out and look down the halls to see no one is looking. But I see further down the halls where the lockers are beside the quad and Spencer still walking away. I see Spencer punch one of the lockers on the way out, not looking back once.

As soon as I get back to the quad my news of going to the office is quickly forgotten due to the scene Spencer just created.

"dude, you just missed it, Spencer Carlin totally flipped out and dented the locker" Charlie says to me.

"really? Damn" I play along. I focus back on my lunch as I see out of the corner of my eye Kyla staring at me. I can tell just by her look she figured out the basic idea why Spencer spazzed. And I know later she's going to ask me about it.

"you know, last year when some freshman pissed her off I remember her torturing the poor kid for like a whole week. I swear it was like watching a kids help phone commercial"

"I wonder who pissed her off" Aiden says.

"I wonder what she's going to do to them" Kyla says, all while looking at me. Way to be subtle.

As soon as the day was over I bolted out of there. I didn't even see Spencer during last period because she wasn't there. Who knows what she did that afternoon. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to lock myself away for a few hours. Feel that guilt-free feeling for just a little while. Because right now, nothing is looking up. As I head to the parking lot I see a figure leaning up against my car, but as I get closer I realize it isn't Spencer, and it isn't Kyla, and it's definitely not Meg.

"Mackenzie?" I call out and she turns to me and for the first time I see the tears streaming down her face uncontrollably. "Mac, what's wrong?" I ask as I run over to help her.

"_I can't believe you…"_ she says in a dangerously low tone.

"what?" I ask as I place my hands on her arms. She's got one arm holding onto the other as she just lets it hang. "what did I do?" I ask, starting to fear what she's going to say.

"you know what you did!" she yells. By now most of the parking lot has cleared out and the busses are all gone.

"apparently not" I tell her.

"_everyone knows_" she whispers harshly.

"knows what?"

"about me! What do you think, Ashley?! Every single person in my school knows I'm gay! It was every where today. I couldn't escape it. The whispers, the looks, the words! I couldn't get away from it all and it's all your fault! Why would you do that to me?!"

"Mac, hold on, I didn't do anything! I swear I would never do that to you!" I tell her quickly. I really wouldn't. I wouldn't dare out someone like that. But I think I know who would… and she happens to be a very pissed of blonde that is currently mad at me. "come on, let's go back to my place and we can talk" I tell her comfortingly.

"no! I can't do this Ashley! How am I supposed to face everyone tomorrow? My friends, my teachers, my parents are probably going to find out about it soon enough. How am I supposed to deal?" she asks as she just cries harder, and it's breaking my heart to see her like this. I may have ended our relationship but I never in a million years wanted this. Not to see her broken like this.

I feel her finally let that wall down and fall into my arms, crying and sobbing until there's nothing left. Her weight against my body forces me to lean against my car and I let our bodies slide down the door until we hit the asphalt. I can feel her tears soaking through my shirt and her body shaking uncontrollably from her sobs. I can't believe Spencer. I mean you think you know someone, and you fall for them, only to see just what kind of person she can be.

_Society is a masked ball, where everyone hides their real character…and reveals it by hiding it._

**So this was probably my favourite chapter to write, mostly because of the intro/end and plus there's a little more emotion in this, real feelings come out, you know.**


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Why become socially acceptable

**Chapter 13: Why become socially acceptable?**

_I've built my high school career on the fact that I am exactly the opposite of your typical high school teenager. Basically the opposite of Spencer, which is odd considering we're kind of… you know. Hell, I don't even know. All I know is that I'm totally not socially acceptable… right?_

I wake up the next morning with Mac still in my bed. Nothing happened between us, but I couldn't let her go home like that. Not when she was that fragile. So I brought her back to my place where she explained to me what happened, cried, drowned herself in ice cream, cried some more and then fell asleep in my arms.

It was heart breaking.

Just to see someone I cared about so much, go through so much pain was painful enough for me. I get out of bed leaving Mac still sleeping. I get dressed and give her parents a call. I know Mac turned her phone off last night; she didn't want to take the chance of talking to anyone and actually discuss what happened. Anyways, I told her parents that everything was fine and she stayed at my place last night and I assured them I would get her to school.

Of course I wouldn't force her to face that right away. So I left her sleeping in my bed and put a note down on the side table. Just explaining to her to sleep, I called her parents and that she can eat what ever comfort food she wants that she can find in the fridge. I also told her I'd be at school and to call me if she needed me. Until then, I've got to get to school and deal with this on my own, Ashley Davies style.

I grab my shit and head down the stairs to see Kyla already waiting for me at the door.

"let's go" I say not showing any emotion. Without a word we both head to my car and get inside. I start up the car and I can feel the want radiating off of her. The want that wants to ask me so many questions. Like why did Mac stay the night? Why did Spencer get pissed yesterday? And why aren't I talking?

All of these questions she is dying to ask, but she's not going to. Not like I would answer them anyways. She'll just have to see for herself in a few minutes. We speed into the school parking lot coming to an abrupt screeching halt, probably scaring the shit out of Kyla. But I'm on a mission right now, and I am still pissed from yesterday. But now, it's for a different reason.

I head into the quad like I do every morning to see my friends, minus Meg, sitting on a table across the area from Spencer and her friends who are all sitting at their own table, chatting and laughing it up. I stare at Spencer and I can see Kyla appear beside me. Without hesitation I start hauling ass over towards the blonde.

"Ashley, where are you going?" Kyla asks in fear. "Ashley!" she calls out and starts chasing after me. But before she can stop me I'm already at the preppy table and pulling Spencer off from the table top. I push her away from the table forcing her to stand, inadvertently causing her to fall at my force.

"what the hell?!" Spencer yells as she pushes herself off the ground and brushes her self off. But as soon as she's up I push her back down again. This time she gets up and pushes me back. "what the fuck is wrong with you?!" Spencer yells and I see a crowd drawing around us.

"what the fuck is wrong with _me_!? What the fuck is wrong with _you_?!" I yell at her.

"have you lost your mind?" she asks me.

"I can't believe you!" I say pushing her again, but this time not hard enough to make her dirty her pretty and pristine outfit. "why did you do it?" I half yell, half cry.

"do _what_?" she yells back.

"you know what! You fucking outted my girlfriend to her entire catholic school! She came to me crying yesterday! And I thought to myself, who would have done something like this? Something to hurt someone so much, which indirectly hurts me too! Well only one person came to mind!"

"what are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Mackenzie King! The girl who's life you possibly ruined! You knew about her and you knew about me! Why would you do that?!" I yell pushing her again, and again, and again, until she trips over her own feet and falls to the floor.

"Ashley, get off of her!" Kyla yells and tries to pull me off of Spencer's body. As soon as I get pulled off Spencer gets up and runs towards me tackling me to the ground. Luckily Kyla moved her ass out of the way. Well, lucky for her. Seeing as I got tackled to the ground. I can see Madison pull Spencer off of me and Aiden hold me back from getting more. I can see her lip is cut and I can feel my nose stinging, probably because it's bleeding. I didn't feel it, but I wouldn't be surprised if Spencer managed to get a punch in here or there.

"break it up! Break it up!" I hear the principal yell in his serious voice. Ooh big whoop. "both of you, office now!" he yells at us and I see Madison let Spencer go with ease while I push myself out of Aiden's grip.

"Get off of me!" I sneer and start heading towards the office with Spencer and the principal walking between us to stop us from going at it again.

When we got to his office the principal was immediately called away for a second, plus I think he went to get us some ice and stuff. As soon as we sit down I start grabbing tissues from the box of Kleenex on his desk and using them to wipe my nose.

"well are you going to explain to me why all of a sudden you started beating me or should I wait for the movie?" Spencer asks from her chair.

"why did you do it? I mean I knew you could be a bitch, but kicking Mac out of the closet was no way to get back at me!"

"Get back at you? Ashley, I never did anything. To you or Mac. I wouldn't do that. I don't even know her!"

"then who would? Because last time I checked you were pretty pissed at me yesterday! And you stormed off to do God knows what"

"I went to blow off some steam. But I didn't do anything to Mackenzie"

"then who did it?!" I cry out, literally crying. I can't just let who ever did this to Mac get away. She means more to me than that.

"I don't know, but I promise you, it wasn't me." She says as she gets off of her chair and kneels in front of me. She let's her hand rest on my knees and looks up at me. I guess I'm still bleeding because I see her reach for a few more tissues to hold to my nose. I push her hand away and hold it in mine.

"you promise it wasn't you?"

"I swear to you" she whispers lightly. Can I actually trust her? I mean she was the one who threatened to do this all in the first place, back when we supposedly hated each other. But I look into those blue eyes and every time I do I feel like it couldn't be her. She's like me in so many ways. And just like me, I know she wouldn't do that to Mac.

"…then I believe you" I whisper back. I trust her. I really do. I don't know why, but there it is. "but I can't figure out who would do it…"

"you know… back when we 'hated' each other Madison is the one who told me about Mackenzie. She's the one that got all that information" Spencer tells me. "now I can't guarantee it was her, but I can find out"

"okay" I whisper again and I bring her to stand up awkwardly and hug me. "I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry" I softly say to her ear.

"I know. I just hope you fight this hard for me if anything would happen to us" she tells me.

"Ladies I believe it's time to discu- oh…" the principal says as he walks in.

"sorry Mr. P, we've already made up" I tell him.

"looks like we've beat you to the punch" Spencer says and we both burst out laughing.

"oh that was a horrible pun" I tell her trying to conceal my smirk.

……

So we all know fighting can't go unpunished, and unfortunately we both got three days suspension. We're lucky Mr. P didn't disqualify us from the candidacy. The only reason we're still in is because if we got kicked out, there would be no one left to vote for. But it could have been worse I guess. And you know what? It's not really a big deal. I mean technically I don't care about getting in trouble and Spencer has good enough grades that the dean of admission at UCLA doesn't care. By the way, that's where Spencer wants to go to school. UCLA. _I_ learned that about _her_. We're making progress.

So instead of sitting on my ass for the next three days I decided to use my time wisely. I plan to help Mac do what ever she needs to do, find out who did this to her, and of course spend sometime with Spencer. The best part about this little vacation is that Spencer's on vacation with me.

"Mac? I'm home" I call out into my own house. I drop my bag by the door and head upstairs to my bedroom to where I last spotted her. "Mackie?" I sing out. She hates that nick name.

"ugh, don't call me that" she groans out from her spot on my bed. I lie down beside her and force her to turn over to look at me.

"please don't tell me you stayed in bed all day" I say.

"no of course not" okay, good. "I got up a couple of times to go to the bathroom" not what I was looking for. "what happened to your face?" she asks grabbing my chin and tilting my head to get a better look.

"I got into a fight at school"

"2 day suspension?"

"3, actually. Seems they're getting more and more strict at my school everyday.

"what happened?" should I tell her I fought my current girlfriend for my ex-girlfriend? Not worth the confusion.

"nothing. Everything's settled. Don't worry about it" I tell her and before she can ask me again, I change the topic.

"how are you doing?" I whisper.

"I'm… I don't know. I feel like I'm still processing everything"

"so tell me what happened"

"I'm not quite sure. I mean the day started out normal, but then as it went on some people started staring at me, and I could literally see people whisper to each other, and text messages were sent around, and before I knew it I had students coming up to me saying that what I'm doing is a sin, and shit like that"

"Are you sure they didn't call you a sinner because of you're swearing?" I ask jokingly, but she doesn't laugh. I guess she's not in the mood.

"Ashley what am I supposed to do? What if my friends hate me?"

"look I'm not going to lie, not everyone's going to like it, especially cause you go to a catholic school. But I guess one positive thing that comes out of this is you learn who your real friends are. The ones who stick by you no matter who you want to date. Those people are the ones that should matter the most to you."

"so what do I do about the rest of the school who possibly might hate me."

"you just take it. There's nothing else you can do."

"…how do you deal with all of the pain?" she asks.

"just keep fighting through it. Eventually… the pain fades"

"are you sure?"

"no" I answer simply. "but it's better than believing it doesn't fade at all"

…………

Mac decided to go home after that. She learned if she didn't start fighting for it now, she probably wouldn't ever leave my room. So I decided to call Spencer, but before I could, I realized someone was standing in my door way.

"come on in, Kyla" I sigh and postpone dialling for a second.

"so that was some nasty fight you got into today" Kyla says looking at me. I haven't even seen my face yet. I get up from my bed and take a glance in my mirror. Ugh, my nose is starting to turn a blue-ish purple, not to mention a small cut on my eyebrow. Thankfully no blood from that one.

"yeah, I guess" I reply. A little make up could clear that up easily.

"what was it about?" she asks, wandering around my room a bit. Trying to be all casual and what not.

"none of your business" I reply smartly.

"cause last time I checked you and Spencer were pretty cozy in the supplies closet, not to mention that car ride home of yours from the cheerleading competition" Kyla says, totally disregarding me.

"things change" I shrug. She has no right to go digging in my life.

"and what about Mac?"

"she was having a few problems and I was helping out" I answer promptly.

"do her problems have to do with Spencer?"

"not directly" I answer. What's with all of these questions? "Kyla if you want to know something just ask me" I tell her flatly.

"how serious are you getting with Spencer?" if only she knew we were serious. Serious enough to have sex. Serious enough to fight each other for what we believe in and then make up 10 minutes later, serious enough to even say those three little words. But should I tell Kyla that?

"… serious enough" I'll give her the bare minimum.

"if you're so serious then why haven't you two said anything about your relationship?"

"it's complicated"

"it's _always _going to be complicated" she says and glances at me to see my reaction. I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore. I swear it's like we talk in riddles all the time. It's almost as if everything we say has to have a double meaning.

"then it will always be complicated" I tell her letting her know I'm okay with that. As soon as I tell her I lie back down on the bed trying to show her I'm done with the conversation. Thankfully, with a sigh, she took the hint and exited my room quietly. As soon as she's gone I pull my cell phone back out and dialled Spencer's number.

"pizza pizza. Pick up or delivery?" she answers jokingly. She's obviously got caller i.d.

"delivery. Now on my pizza I would like pepperoni, cheese, green peppers and mushrooms… oh and if possible could you have a sexy blonde with blue eyes deliver it? Thanks" I reply jokingly.

"well I think I could arrange the delivery girl, but the pizza might take a little bit longer to deliver"

"ah, what the hell, just send the girl. I'll _eat_ anything… or anyone" sexual innuendos at its highest.

"Ashley!" she shrieks.

"how did you know my name?" I gasp, stifling a laugh too.

"well if you've forgotten our night last week at the cheerleading competition I'm going to be hurt. I do believe it was my name you were screaming"

"Spencer Carlin!" I yell accusingly.

"yeah, actually it sounded just like that"

"okay, okay, game over. Did you talk to Madison?"

"yeah, actually I did. You mind if we talk about this in person? I kind of feel like we haven't spent a lot of time together lately"

"oh besides our boxing match in the quad today?"

"yeah, besides that" she replies sarcastically making both of us laugh.

"yeah okay. Why don't you come by my place tonight? Stay the night…" I offer.

"you sure?"

"we got three days to kill" I tell her.

"it's getting late…"

"come over in your pyjamas."

"my parents are asleep"

"sneak out"

"I'm not looking for a night of eroticism" she tells me and I fight the urge to laugh and keep a straight face.

"…then there won't be" I tell her softly. "why are you trying so hard to come up with an excuse so you don't have to come over here?"

"why are you trying so hard to get me to come over there?" she counters.

"because I want to be with you" I lay it out flat. Just like that. Simple in its own way.

"then I'll come over" she says and just like that she hangs up.

………

About 20 minutes later there's a knock at my front door. It's dark outside and I'm sure Kyla's crawled up on the couch watching TV or something. I open the door to see Spencer supporting baggy flannel pants, and a nicely fit t-shirt, with a shoulder bag with her stuff in it around her body. Silently I smile and open the door wider so she can enter my house. I lead her upstairs to my bedroom so she can drop off her stuff while we take a seat on my bed.

"so did you talk to Madison?" I ask, breaking the silence.

"yeah. It was a conversation full of swearing and cursing, all about you of course, and I told her the reason why you were going all Rocky Balboa on me, and I asked her and she said she didn't do it"

"and you believe her?"

"she's my best friend. She has no reason to lie to me. Plus I can tell when she lies" she smirks. "Her eye brows are always extremely high and nostrils flare" she says and I can't help but laugh a little.

"I'll keep that in mind for next time I talk to her"

"if you confront her about lying she'll just cave right away" Spencer replies with a smile. She lies down on my bed getting more comfortable knowing that I would never dare stop her.

"so if it isn't her then who is it?" I ask as I lie down beside her.

"that… is a good question. I don't know… all I know is that it wasn't Madison and it wasn't me"

"well you just eliminated the top two suspects. You know you're making this investigation a lot harder than I thought it would be"

"sorry" she replies honestly, but with a good heart. Before I can ask yet another question I feel Spencer pull my hand towards her, silently asking me to lie down beside her. So I comply and let my head rest on the pillow beside her, all while continuing the conversation.

"so if it isn't you and it isn't Madison, who else would it be?"

"the naughty kick-you-out of-the-gay-closet elves?"

"hm, heard about them, they're nasty bastards" I play along.

"totally" she agrees. "…so what made you want to 'come out'? ugh, I hate those words" she admits.

"I… didn't want to lie to everyone anymore, especially myself" I tell her. "I was tired of living a lie. Because all those people who claimed to be my friends, were friends with someone who wasn't me. Pretending to be something socially acceptable isn't what I wanted. I wanted to stop pretending because it felt like the more I pretended, the more I lost sight on who I really was"

"and who's that?"

"Ashley Davies, gay, loner, rocker, the girl who's not afraid to get into a fight, a bitch, none of the above, all of the above. I just wanted to be someone who wasn't _who I was_" I tell her, while letting my eyes stare at the ceiling. "it just happened that that person who I was, was socially _un_acceptable"

"that's not true, you know?" Spencer says, staring up at the ceiling just as I am. "by becoming who you are, and having half the school follow your lead, you've become socially acceptable"

"oh yeah? And how is that?"

"it's just the society within the school. The society in which every high school builds with it's minimal population is like a mini version of the world. However immature it may be, it still represents the society that these students will bring forth in the future. At King High everyone is divided, it's either you're with us or your with them… you're fighting for _us_ or your fighting for _them_. But at the end of the day you're left with the people who trust you, the people _you_ trust. Those are the people who make you socially acceptable"

"how did we go from talking about who outted my ex-girlfriend to defining what is socially acceptable?" I ask.

"no clue, but I've never done that before"

"yeah, me neither"

"I say we should figure out who killed Mr. Boddy tomorrow, Mrs. White." She says referring to the whole who outted Mac debacle.

"indeed Mrs. Peacock. But my bet is on Professor Plum with the lead pipe in the study"

"mm, I do concur." Spencer agrees jokingly.

"bed then?"

"sure" she says with a smile. I pull up the sheets and I feel Spencer snuggle closer to me. "you know, I haven't had a kiss in about 11 hours"

"oh wow… 11 hours" I say wrapping my arm around her. "that _is_ a long time" I tell her and pretend to pause for a second. "well goodnight" I say cheerfully and get comfortable in the bed. I crack one eye open to get a peak at her and I see her leaning over smirking at me. She taps her lips twice expecting me to kiss her. Should I give in? ah, who am I kidding? I can't resist that face.

I lean over and press my lips onto hers and I can feel her press hers back onto mine.

"succumbing to the seductions that is Spencer Carlin. Does that make me socially acceptable?" I ask pulling back slowly.

"trust me, succumbing to the seductions that is Spencer Carlin is just something everyone does. It's inevitable."

"…then consider me socially acceptable"


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14: Why do we fall from grace

**Chapter 14: Why do we venture into the cold?**

_Have you ever woken up in your cozy warm bed in the middle of a cold winter morning, just thinking how comfortable you are? That you couldn't possibly be any more comfortable than this? Well that's exactly what I feel right now. Being in bed with someone who wants you is the ultimate comfort. Actually, being in bed with Spencer is the ultimate comfort._

_But we all know eventually, on that cold winter day, you have to leave the comforts of your warm bed, and venture down the freezing cold air of the hallway and get on with life._

We woke up the next morning relatively in the same position. My arm was still around her back and her body was leaning onto mine for cushioning. It worked out well. I can't help but think that the more time I spend with Spencer the more I realize that Mac and I never really had anything. When ever she would stay the night, which was rare by the way, we would fall asleep together but somewhere in the middle of the night drift apart. Don't get me wrong, I do love Mac, but we just weren't meant to be together.

"hey stop thinking so hard, you look like you're about to burst a blood vessel" Spencer says groggily as she manages to squint her eyes open at me.

"just like all the ones in my nose that you broke, causing this lovely bruise to form" I say pointing to my black and blue nose, I'm sure.

"uh, if I remember correctly you were the one who repeatedly pushed me to the ground, and somehow gave me this very attractive cut on my lip." She argues.

"I personally think it's hot. I like knowing that my girl isn't afraid to get into a fight… given it was with me, but you know" I tell her and I see a small smile spread across her face.

"so… I'm your girl now, huh?"

"well uh… you know… with everything-"

"-good, I want to be your girl" she says and rests her head back in the crook of my neck. "what time is it?"

"8:34am"

"mm, you know, I kind of like being suspended" Spencer states.

"what did your parents say?"

"oh you know… the typical. We're disappointed. Don't do it again, blah blah blah"

"blah blah blah, huh? Are you sure you're not confusing your mom with Charlie Brown's teacher?"

"she might as well be. I kind of tuned her out after the first 10 minutes of yelling"

"so what's she going to say when she finds out you snuck out in the middle of the night to stay over here?"

"surprisingly, she'll probably take it better than the suspension. She's all hung up on getting me a girlfriend and stuff"

"I think you've got the most supportive mother I've ever seen" I state.

"yeah, I'm pretty lucky like that I guess" she says as she lazily drags her finger on my t-shirt over my stomach. "what did your mom say when she found out about your suspension?"

"she doesn't know. She'll find out at the end of the month when she gets back"

"from where?"

"beats me. She often takes vacations, and comes back once a month to impose torture upon me and who ever else is home"

"hm, sounds like my period" she says jokingly.

"ew, god, I totally didn't need you comparing my mother to your monthly PMS visit"

"well if you ever need a mom to yell at you, mines there" Spencer says with a smile.

"appreciate it. Thanks" I say sarcastically. "so what are we going to do today?"

"I don't know. I'm pretty comfortable here" Spencer says only digging her body further into mine. I grab her hand and link her fingers with mine as I push her body onto her back so that I'm half on top of her and make my face even with hers.

"we have 3 days to kill. I plan on making use out of all of them" I whisper and lean down to press my lips to hers, which she gladly accepts. "you know how you said you didn't want a night of eroticism?" I ask.

"mhm" she says quickly, all while still kissing me, she's so talented.

"that whole no _night_ of eroticism doesn't happen to pertain to _today_, does it?" I ask and I let my hand slide down her t-shirt, feeling every _bump_ along the way.

"hm, I'm not sure yet. But I do promise you that you will enjoy these next 3 days" she says cheekily.

"_promise?_" I ask.

"I promise" she assures me and lays a few solid kisses on my neck.

"alright, then I trust you" I say and push the sheets off of me.

"whoa, where are you going?" she asks at the sudden loss of my body in the bed.

"to take a shower. We got some work to do today. Watch some TV or grab some food downstairs if you want" I offer and pick up a towel from inside of my closet.

"okay…" she says and grabs the remote off my shelf to turn the TV on. While her back is turned I turn on the shower and let it warm up for a second. On second thought, I think I have something else in mind…

I creep back out to my room to see Spencer standing in front of the TV flipping through the channels, well actually she's trying to figure out how to flip through the channels, but the point is, is she's distracted. I use my stealth James Bond skills and sneak up behind her. Without so much as a sound I quickly wrap my arms around her waist and lift her up from behind. I hear Spencer let out a girly scream, just as I predicted, and pull her backwards towards my bathroom.

"you didn't think I was going to shower alone did I?" I ask with a smirk though she can't see it.

"no, don't you dare!" she yells, though I can hear the fun in her voice. I pull her into the bathroom and put us both in the shower, still fully clothed. We let the water wash over us and I can't help but laugh at Spencer's supposed angry face. But with my laughing, she can't help but join in.

Anybody else probably would have been pissed, but Spencer just couldn't help but give in. And I like that about her. I see her smile and it must be contagious because I smart smiling too. Before either of us can say anything she wraps her arms around my neck, and I wrap mine around her waist.

"I'll get you back for this" she says, merely inches from my face.

"…and I can't wait" I reply as we both lean in for a soaking wet kiss.

………

"so where are we going?" Spencer asks. We're driving in my Porsche on the way to a certain ex-girlfriend's house.

"to Mac's, I think I've got a plan" I tell her.

"do you think it's such a good idea that _I_ go to Mac's? I mean last time I talked to her it was a lot of yelling on her part"

"um I think she's okay with it, you know just don't flaunt anything, no flirting, try not to jump me and have rough wild sex right in front of her" I list casually.

"oh I'll try my best to refrain from that last one" she says sarcastically, making me laugh. She's good at that… making me laugh.

"I'm just kidding. But I honestly don't know how she feels about us, just I think she's more worried about her friends and stuff. So don't be starting any fights or anything."

"me? Start fights?" she asks as if she's completely offended. I know she isn't afraid to fight.

"if I recall, you've been involved in 2 fights in the passed week" I state smartly.

"uh yeah, but if you recall _correctly_, you'll notice I started neither of those fights"

"I also noticed you didn't end them either"

"well that's not the point, the point is…" she completely lost sight of the conversation. "help me out" she begs.

"the point is, we're going over to Mac's and everything will be all right" I assure her.

"yes, that's what I meant" Spencer says and gives me a little smirk.

……

As soon as we pull up to Mac's house we both get out and walk up to the door, hands linked together. There's no cars in the driveway, which means Mac's parents are at work. Good, I don't really want to have to deal with them right now. I knock on the door and wait a second to hear footsteps travelling down her set of stairs. The door opens and Mac seems mildly happy that I'm here, but her happiness is soon filled with surprise as she sees who's with me.

"Ashley… and girlfriend" Mac greets us.

"we're not-" Spencer starts.

"-together?" Mac finishes. "seems like it" she says looking down at our clasped hands and all of a sudden Spencer and I both let go at the same time.

"We're together, just not… quite there yet" I answer. Fuck this is awkward, someone change the topic.

"did you two shower together?" she asks, noticing how we both have wet hair.

"no" we both answer quickly. Well that wasn't suspicious at all!

"what ever, what do you want?"

"hey, hey now, don't get all bitchy mode on me" I say sweetly as I force our way into her house. "I'm here to help, actually _we're_ here to help" I say referring to Spencer and myself.

"yeah and how is that?"

"do you have any extra sets of your school uniform?" I ask with a smirk.

………

"I haven't worn a catholic school girl uniform since my last school" Spencer whines as she looks at herself in the mirror. Since Mac wasn't going to school Spencer and I decided to. Well _I_ decided to, Spencer was forced. So we're just getting ready to head over to her school and we needed to blend in, so Spencer and I borrowed a couple of Mac's skirts, and blouses in order to camouflage.

"don't forget the knee socks." Mac says a little too cheerfully, as she hands over a couple pairs of knee socks to us. Surprisingly Mac was civil with Spencer. Of course they weren't BFF's or anything, but they were… civil. That seems to be the only word to describe them right now.

"what happened?" I ask Spencer.

"what?" she asks confusedly as she repeatedly tries to fix the collar on her shirt so that she looks presentable.

"how come you didn't go to a catholic school when you moved here?" I clarify.

"my mom didn't think it was right that I go to a catholic school when she found out my secret"

"gee, I wonder why…" Mac mutters underneath her breath. I send a glare Mac's way and she catches the hint. First she rolls her eyes, but she catches the hint. "so what exactly are you going to do once you get to my school?" Mac asks.

"blend in, ask around about you, see who heard what from who and hopefully pinpoint a source" I answer as I gather my stuff up and take one last look in the mirror.

"alright just don't get caught. Neither of you have student I.D. cards, so stay clear from teachers" Mac helps.

"what if we're approached by a teacher during class time?" Spencer asks as she flattens her collar, and shifts it around.

"tell them you have free period. If not just wait until noon for the cafeteria to fill, then you can ask people"

"check" I say. "nobody's going to notice me are they?" I ask just to be sure.

"oh don't worry, I didn't introduce you to any of my friends, remember?" she says with attitude. Just because I've helped her try to get through all this, still doesn't erase the fact that I fell in love with someone else while dating her.

"right, how could I forget" I answer quickly. "anyways, we best be off, we'll return the uniforms in a couple of hours, and share the gory secrets we have yet to discover." I inform Mac as I unfold Spencer's collar so that it's flared out. She checks herself in the mirror again and decides she's happy with it. "later" I say and pull Spencer out the door.

……

"so we're actually going to go through with this?" Spencer asks as she and I enter the halls of St. Joseph Catholic School.

"it's too late to turn around now"

"I don't know. My feet would say otherwise" I'm not really sure why Spencer's so nervous. Hm, maybe it's because it's two gay girls in a catholic school. I don't think god will smite us or anything. Well you never know…

"come on, I think the cafeteria's this way, lunch starts in like 10 minutes" I say as we travel the halls, going unnoticed by other students. We make it to the cafeteria and see there's already a few groups of students sitting and relaxing. "okay, let's split up, that way we cover more people at once"

"okay… so what do I say?" Spencer whispers.

"just casually slip in asking if they heard about that Mac and her secret and see if you can find out who told them and just keep going. Okay?"

"okay. Be careful" Spencer warns and I can't help but roll my eyes at her.

"of course. I'll be sure to watch out for the _other_ school girl impostors trying to dig up secrets on their ex-girlfriends. Good luck cat woman" I whisper harshly, receiving an annoyed stare back from Spencer. Okay, let's do this. We break a part while Spencer goes to one group I go to another.

"hey guys" I say approaching a group of girls sitting randomly at a table, playing with a deck of cards.

"um, hey" one girl says awkwardly, yeah they probably think I'm a total creeper.

"listen, I know this is kind of random, but did you guys hear about that Mackenzie King girl? Is it true what they say? Is she really a… _lesbian_?" I whisper 'lesbian' for effect. I try my best to hold back a chuckle at the same time.

"oh totally" one girl says.

"I knew it all along" the girl beside her says. What posers.

"well I heard from Sarah that it was actually a lie" I say coming up with the most generic name possible. Every school has a Sarah, it's like a rule or something. Just then the bell rings and I see students slowly flood into the cafeteria and things get louder and louder.

"Sarah B or Sarah R? cause Sarah R totally has a big mouth. I mean when Jennifer puked during that biology dissection Sarah R went around to the whole school telling everyone. Yeah, Jennifer had to go home early just because of the humiliation" one chick says. Well more like tells me a story but what ever.

"well of course it was Sarah R, Sarah B's way too nice to do anything like that." I play along.

"you're so right, but anyways, it's weird that Sarah R would say that, cause I heard from Jackie that it's totally true" Jackie, huh? One step closer.

"do you guys happen to know where Jackie is?" I ask, glancing around the café for effect.

"oh yeah… there she is" one of the girls points out to the far side of the café.

"thanks guys" I say back in a preppy way. Wow, I kind of feel like Spencer.

About 45 minutes later I managed to meet up with Spencer and we found a nice little corner to sit in and chat about what we discovered.

"so did you find anything?" Spencer asks initially.

"well I found out that Jackie heard from Becky, who heard from Shirley, who heard from Mya, who heard from Katie that Mac was gay, but I haven't gotten as far as Katie. And apparently it's Katie L, not Katie O, or Katie A, apparently Katie O and A are like totally untrustworthy and never tell the truth." I say just like how everyone talks around here. It's terrible. At least Spencer was able to crack a smile.

"well I think I might have found something. So I was talking to a bunch of girls and the name Lucy came up more than once. Actually it came up 4 times, so I'm starting to think that it's this girl who's spreading the secret." Spencer tells me. Jackpot.

"okay, so where's this Lucy chick then?" I ask and Spencer shrugs. "you know, you're not being a very helpful partner in crime"

"hey, I got you her name! Plus, in the bond movies James needs the help of Natalya and some point" she argues.

"well James also always gets the girl in the end" I say with a wink.

"let's find Lucy first then we can talk about what you get in the end" she says with a smirk.

"fine, how do we find her?" I ask.

"easy, use your tough girl shit on one of the freshman. Usually the chick who spreads the rumours is totally known." Spencer points out. Fine with me. I grab a short freshman who's walking by me and pull her back for a second.

"hey, who's Lucy?" I ask intimidatingly and I see the fear struck in her eyes. She's frozen for words. Perfect, I picked a mute freshmen.

"hey! She asked you a question!" Spencer yells. I didn't even know she could be intimidating like that. I'm so turned on.

"uh, sh-she's right over there" she points to a girl sitting at the head of her table on the other side of the room.

"thank you" Spencer and I both say at the same time and I let her go. "nice work Natalya" I compliment her.

"you as well, Bond"

We walk over to the girl pointed out by the frightened freshmen and we take a seat on either side of her. This girl looks kind of familiar, maybe I slept with her once or something. Don't tell Spencer.

"uh, can I help you?" she asks and I just nod to Spencer letting her know to follow my lead.

"oh my god! Is it true that Mackenzie King is really… gay?!" I ask in the valley girl kind of way and I see Spencer smirk at my performance from across the table.

"uh, yeah" she says as if I'm a freak.

"no way!" Spencer joins in, acting just like me. "how do you know… did you like see them totally making out or something?"

"please? And force my eyes to witness something that disgusting? Yeah right" Lucy says in front of all of her friends.

"then how did you know?" I ask.

"my cousin goes to school with her girlfriend" she says and my jaw immediately drops. "hey don't I know you from somewhere?" Lucy asks me and it hits me. She does know me. And I know her. And I know how, too.

"nope, we've got to go, come on Spence" I say pulling Spencer out of her chair and towards the doors of the cafeteria.

"terrible isn't it? How they just let girls like her in…" Lucy says to us before we can leave and Spencer and I both stop moving.

"what?" I ask.

"gay people. They don't belong here" she says. God I hate homophobes. I take Spencer's hand in mine and pull her back to the table. Of course she comes willingly because she's just as pissed as I am.

"is that so?" I ask as I bring Spencer to stand in front of me, wedged between me and the table, with Lucy still sitting at the head of it.

"yeah, it is" Lucy says, so sure of herself.

"oh, okay…" I say carelessly as I let my hands rest of Spencer's waist. I look into her eyes with a smirk and I think she knows what's ahead for us. I push Spencer back onto the table, right in front of Lucy, pressing my lips down onto hers, just to show all these girls what they're missing. Spencer lets her hands tangle in my hair as I continue to kiss her in front of all of these girls. In one swift motion I pull Spencer back up and pull back, hands still all over each other.

"and FYI, your cousin's gay too" I tell her and Spencer and I start walking towards the exit. Out of nowhere I see a couple of teachers start calling after us.

"run" I mutter and I pick up my feet to move my ass faster.

"Ashley, wait!" Spencer says as I continue to drag her along.

"hurry up!" I yell. We make it through the doors and head straight for my car. "I… can't believe it. I just… well I guess I can, but still."

"what's going on? Do you know her?"

"yeah, it's complicated though"

"well explain it to me" she says, I open the car with my car keys and we both get inside. I get my phone out and start dialling Mac's number, putting it on speaker phone at the same time.

"well?" Spencer asks.

"shh!" I say loudly and wait for Mac to pick up.

"yeah?" Mac answers.

"we know who it is" I say immediately and Spencer glares at me. "well _I_ know who it is"

"well, who is it?" Mackenzie asks impatiently.

"I should have figured it out before. Do you know a Lucy at school?" I ask.

"yeah, sure why?"

"well she told us she got the news about you from her cousin."

"am I missing something here?" Mac asks.

"she said her cousin goes to school with me. And I _knew_ I knew her from somewhere and I was right. Lucy is Megan's little cousin"

…_And just like that, the warm comfort was gone. It was almost as if this realization of this information was that cold air in the winter day, reminding me life has to go on, and it's not always going to be as warm and comforting as my cozy bed._


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15: Why do Dreamers Dream

**Chapter 15: Why do Dreamers Dream?**

**Okay, so I know it's been a really long time since I've updated and I'm sorry, but for days I've been trying to figure out the intro/end to this chapter. And I just got sick of it, so I just wrote what ever came to mind. Hope you enjoy!**

You know what I love about dreaming? For the time span of however long you dream, everything seems perfect. Meg used to be part of my dreams. You know, those dreams where your life just couldn't get any better? Well yeah, she was there, and she was standing next to be, doing her best friend duties and such. But I've come to learn that _that_ dream wasn't a dream at all… it was a nightmare, because I _know_ no best friend of mine would ever do what she did to me.

"I told you I never liked her!" Mac yells at me as I undress in her room, in front of her. Spencer's changing in the bathroom.

"oh please, you never liked any of my friends!" I yell back as I throw her shirt back at her angrily.

"so now that we know it's Megan what are we going to do?" Spencer asks, stepping out of the bathroom, now dressed in her normal clothes. Aw, I kind of miss the school girl look on her.

"we?" Mac asks while standing up from her bed. "no, there is no we. Megan outted _me_, not you. This has nothing to do with _you_" Mac says as she stands up from her seat on the bed. I don't even know why she tries, she's not that intimidating.

"calm down there Mackenzie" I say pushing her back down onto the bed. "she's helping _us_"

"so once again, I ask what are _we_ going to do?" Spencer asks, shoving it in Mac's face. Nice, real nice. Get the pissed off chick even more pissed off.

"_we?_" I ask. "no, _we_ aren't going to do anything" I say referring to the three of us. "_I'm_ going to go kick Megan's ass!" I yell and push my skirt off so I'm only left standing in my bra and panties. I guess now's the time to put some pants on.

"cause you know fighting worked out so well the last time" Spencer says sarcastically referring to the cut on her face. Mac can't help but let out a little laugh. Yeah, I think it's safe to say she doesn't like Spencer and might not ever like her.

"well no offence to your intelligence or anything…" Mac starts. "but what else could she do? I mean she's already outted me, who's left?"

Gee, I wonder. I look at Mac and then nod towards the blonde standing beside me.

"oh… I just thought…" Mac starts.

"no" Spencer says quickly.

"so what is the deal with you two anyways?" Mac asks as she leans back on her elbows getting comfortable.

"none of your business" I tell her before either of us can open our big mouths and ruin what ever it is we have. You know it works that way.

"um actually, you two were hooking up while we were still dating" Mac argues with me. "so I think I at least deserve something" fuck, she's using the whole guilt thing.

"it's complicated" Spencer mutters.

"it usually is with Ashley" Mac says and I manage to give her the finger.

"so seriously, what's the deal?" Mac asks. "you two start hooking up in school… closets, class rooms, teacher's lounge?" well… not the teacher's lounge. Yet.

"am I that predictable?" I ask out loud. Seriously…

"sometimes" Mac answers. "so how did you two meet?"

"Ashley walked into me on the first day of school and threatened to kick my ass" Spencer says and I can't help but smile. I don't remember that, but that does sound like me.

"quite the charmer, ain't ya?" Mac says jokingly as she throws my shirt at me, I was looking for that.

"hey, I got the girl didn't I?"

"and at what costs?" Mac asks hypothetically. "you two have your fun at a hotel at some cheerleading competition, making out after school. But you can't go out in public, you can't hold hands in the hallways, what can you do beside wait until you're behind closed doors?"

How do I answer something like that? I know she's right, and Spencer knows it to, but what can we do about it?

"it's almost 2:30" I state. "I'm going to go see if I can find Meg" avoiding the question is the only way to go.

"I'll go with you" Spencer says.

"yeah, me too" Mac says as she stands up from her spot on the bed and both Spencer and I push her back down.

"I don't think so" I tell her.

"what, why?"

"I'm not going to let you fight. I care about you too much"

"what about Spencer? You _love_ her"

"yeah… but I _know_ she can fight" I retaliate.

"oh come on! This is the bitch that told my whole school I was gay! At least let me come watch!" she does have a point. I look at Spencer and she doesn't really care.

"fine… but you stay in the car"

"yeah what ever!" she says running passed us and out the door.

"are we really going to fight her?" Spencer asks.

"hopefully, no. But I tend to let the anger get the better of me sometimes"

"really? I never noticed" she says sarcastically.

"okay, okay, get your sarcastic ass out the door"

………

So since we're suspended and all we're not actually allowed to step on school property for three days. So we're waiting for Megan to come to us. As soon as the busses cleared out we saw Megan come out of the school and start walking out of the parking lot.

"there she is" I point out. Spencer and Mac both look my way and see her. "alright I'm going to go talk to her, you guys wait here" I tell them.

"wait, what? What about me? I thought we were going to go together" Spencer argues as she takes off her seat belt to get out too.

"just… wait in the car for now. Someone might be watching or something…" we all know that ruined reputations seem to be going around like wild fire these days.

"fine" Spencer agrees reluctantly. I think part of her just doesn't want to stay in the car alone with Mac.

"Megan!" I yell out as I see Meg walking down along the sidewalk. I see her stop in her spot and slowly turn around with a smirk on her face.

"well if it is King High's latest suspended lesbian" she says looking at me. "oh and there's the other one" she says looking behind me to see Spencer. "well I take by the angry look on your faces you found out…" she says not caring anymore. Just bitter.

"what the fuck, Meg? Why would you go after Mac like that?!"

"well let's just say it's a warning…

"a warning?" Spencer asks.

"don't play games with me, Meg" I threaten. "you really hurt Mac, and I thought it was Spencer who pulled that shit, only to find out it was my best friend!"

"yeah" Meg says with a chuckle. "I heard Spencer really took a beating"

"it should have been you!" Spencer yells from behind me.

"yeah, you're probably right." Meg admits. "but it wasn't. And you're not going to do anything about it"

"what makes you so sure?" I ask.

"you know what? Go ahead, hit me, but like your little ex-girlfriend who is sitting in your car right now, I guarantee you, King High is a lot worse. Wouldn't want Spencer's little secret to get out now would we?"

I don't know how this happened. I don't know why Meg is acting this way. I mean, well yeah I get the whole best friend dating ex-girlfriend thing, but still, I was never this better when I found out she dated Spencer.

"fine, we're even then, okay?" I ask seriously.

"no, you see, we're not" Megan says before we can walk away.

"excuse me?" Spencer asks.

"tell me, how is it fair that I had my heart ripped out and stomped on, and you two get away unharmed?"

"unharmed?!" I yell. "I lost my best friend because I fell in love! You tell _me_ how is _that_ fair?!"

"at least you have someone! I lost my girlfriend _and_ my best friend!" Meg yells. "come on Ashley, top that one, I guarantee you my life's worse."

"Meg, I don't want to have this fight! I don't want to be _in_ a fight with you! Why can't you just let this go? I did when you were with her!"

"well I'm not you! God knows if I was, _I_ would be the one with the girlfriend… not you"

"fine, Meg, fine! I'm done, I'm done with it all, what do you want? What do I have to do to make this end?!" I ask, just getting plain tired of it all.

"hand over the reject crew to me" she says plainly.

"what?" I ask.

"you heard me. Let me take it over, and you just become another follower."

"If I do this, it's done, no one gets hurt anymore, especially Mac and Spencer. You drop it, right?"

"Ashley…" Spencer tries to get me to stop but I just ignore her. If this is the only way.

"consider it dropped" Meg states.

"okay…" I say taking a step closer to Megan so that Spencer can't hear. "_and just like our deal, you can consider our friendship… over"_

………

"so you just let her go? Just like that?" Mac clarifies.

"yeah" I say plainly.

"so what's the deal she proposed then?" Mac asks.

"Ashley gives up being the leader of her half of the school and she won't hurt anyone else" Spencer says guiltily. I didn't really like the way she said it.

"but you love being who you are all those other people looking up to you" Mac says. At least she learned that much while dating me.

"I know. But it was either that or Spencer… and I chose Spencer" I state and I think it clicks to Mac just how much this girl means to me. Hell, it even clicks to Spencer how much she means to me.

I guess on some level we all know Spencer means more to me than Mac did when we dated, as terrible as it sounds. And at this point she's way ahead of Megan on the people-I-like list.

"come on Spence, I better take you home before your parents call the cops" I tell her as I grab her hand and place it in mine before leaving Mac's room.

"hey guys, I just wanted to say thanks before you leave" Mac says getting up fro her bed to say a formal good bye. "it made a difference to me… what you did. And I'm glad that if Ashley left me for another girl that it was someone as cool as you Spencer"

"thanks Mackenzie" Spencer says softly.

"and you" Mac says looking at me. "you little trouble maker…_thanks_. You made the blow a lot softer"

"you going to go back to school tomorrow?" I ask.

"yeah… probably, just keep fighting through it, right? The pain eventually fades" she says reciting the words I told her merely a day ago.

"that's right" I whisper and give Mac a little wave goodbye. I guess I may have lost a best friend, but I gained someone else who was important to me.

………

"well today was fun" I say sarcastically as I pull up in front of Spencer's house and turn off the car. "maybe we should do it all again tomorrow."

"getting your hopes up a little aren't you?" she asks with a smirk.

"maybe, but high hopes keep me going now that I don't have my loyal followers" I try to joke, but it comes out a lot sadder than I intended. Especially from the look on Spencer's face and how her joking toothy grin just went to the sad smile. I've been seeing that way too much lately.

"I can't believe you did that…" she whispers as she lays her head back on the head rest, while keeping her gaze on me.

"it wasn't a big deal"

"but Mac said it meant the world to you…"

"it did, but I can live without it. But what I can't live with is just letting someone hurt the people I care about" I say giving her hand an extra little squeeze.

"why do you care about me so much?" Spencer asks seriously.

"I just do…" I answer.

"but you can't" she tries to argue, shaking her head at me.

"well I do. I can't explain it to you, I can't show you, and I can't understand it myself, but I do. I love you so much and I don't know why. But I don't care. Because I love being in love with you"

With a smile on her face Spencer lifts her right hand to my cheek and I hold it there with my free hand.

"do you want to stay over again?" I ask sheepishly.

"…nah, I think I should sleep in my own bed tonight" she says to my dismay. "but I'll come over in the morning, okay?"

"I'll leave the door open for you" I tell her.

"two days left, then it's back to a separated world" she states. Way to be a Debbie downer.

"until then I'm going to spend all my time with you"

"good, cause I kind of like hanging with you"

"kind of?" I repeat.

"well maybe a little more than 'kind of'…" she drags on. "we're quite the duo you know? Shaking up catholic schools, making out in front of homophobes, it's a wild life you live Ashley Davies"

"that bitch deserved what she got" I say jokingly… sort of.

"the point is… I thought it was fun. It was weird though, I mean the only way we could be together, like a couple, was in another school, a catholic school no less. I just wish…"

"…it could be our school" I finish for her. "me too" I whisper.

"I still can't believe you gave up everything for me"

"and Mac" I add.

"Ashley, you know just as well as I do, Megan couldn't have done anything more to Mac, I was the only one left" Spencer says. I didn't think she would figure it out.

"well, I couldn't risk it, plus, I don't care if Megan takes over. What ever. It'll make things a little less complicated between us"

"you think?" Spencer asks.

"no. But I can hope"

"it seems you do a lot of hoping" Spencer states.

"well one day… all these hopes will turn into dreams and some of those dreams may come true" I explain to her.

"dreams? As in the dreams you have every night when you go to sleep?" she asks curiously, with a playful smile on her face.

"no those dreams are filled with you wearing little or next to no clothing." I say with a smirk.

"oh okay, so then is it the dreams you have during the _day_?" she asks playing along.

"no… no those dreams are _also _filled with you wearing little or next to no clothing"

"oh, okay, so then what dreams are these?" she asks for clarification.

"these are the dreams that I have every second of the day, the dreams that stay with my for the rest of my life, the dreams that may never come true, but I still have faith in."

"and what exactly do these dreams consist of?"

"dreams that one day Meg and I will be friends despite our past, present and future… dreams that Mac will find the right girl for her and she will be accepted… and dreams that one day you and I can hold hands and not have to worry about what friends stand behind us, or what cliques agree with us… dreams that may never come true"

_Dreaming's not so easy, especially with my life, but I've learned something. I'll do my dreaming with my eyes wide open, and I'll do my looking back with my eyes closed. Because considering everything… that's the only way to go._


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

**Okay, I know! I have been the worst author! I am so sorry. I have been majorly blocked lately, and I didn't want to put the story on hiatus or anything, even though it kind of was for like 3 weeks or so. But I just sat myself down today and forced myself to push out another chapter. It's not really long, it's not really interesting, but it's a step in the right direction. I'm going to try my best to keep the chapters coming, but I can't promise them on a regular basis.**

_I remember when I was little my dad bought me this little label making machine. I would punch in a few letters, print out the sticker and stick it on what ever I could find. I put the word 'table' on a table, the word 'door' on a door, I would even put the word 'dad' on my dad, just to remind him who he was. So today, I find myself thinking about labels again, but not the same kind of labels. I mean, yes a table is still a table, and a door is still a door, but what about other things? What about other people? _

_Like Spencer._

_Before I would probably label Mac my girlfriend, Megan my best friend and Spencer my worst enemy. But now, things are different. If I were to print off a label now, what would Spencer be? Would she be my worst enemy? My friend? My girlfriend? I mean, it's not like she's only one thing to me, so what does that make her?_

So here I was, still sleeping dreaming dirty thoughts of Spencer when I wake up to the feeling of someone getting into bed with me.

"I know you're awake" Spencer whispers into my ear, with her hot breath making me tingle.

"no, I'm not" I groan back making her laugh a little. Why do I feel like it's early in the morning? "you better pray that it's after 10:30am" I tell her.

"oh, well then, don't open your eyes" she says. I crack one eye open, just one, only to see the red numbers on my alarm clock read 7:00am.

"nooo" I groan out again as I pull the covers up above my head.

"yes" she says pulling the sheets down. "now come on, I told Kyla we'd give her a ride to school" Spencer says.

"why would you do that?"

"…'cause I ran into her on the way up and thought it would be a nice gesture"

"oh that_ is _nice…" I say sweetly. "too bad that I'm not in a nice mood since it's _7:00_ _in the morning_."

"if I give you a kiss… then will you be in a nice mood?"

"no, I'll be in a horny mood" I counter with a smirk.

"oh, well then I guess no kisses for you today" Spencer teases me.

"oh, well then I guess no ride to school for Kyla"

"oh Spencer will you just kiss her already? I'm going to be late for school!" Kyla says from the door way.

"I'd listen to her if I were you…" I say to Spencer. "she's has special powers" I whisper jokingly.

"is that so?" Spencer asks as she glances to Kyla then back at me. I just nod in response. "okay… if it's for Kyla" she drags out and leans down to kiss me.

"smart choice" I mutter as she pulls back.

"yeah, yeah, now get dressed!" Kyla yells and exits the room.

I pull the sheets off of my body as I get up to get dressed. Spencer remains laying in my bed as head into my walk in closet.

"so what are we doing today?" I ask as I pick out a shirt and jeans.

"I don't know, what do you want to do?" she asks. I walk back out of the closet, now only dressed in my bra and panties for fun. Spencer's eyes fall on my body and I smirk as she becomes speechless. "breakfast?" I ask, slipping into my jeans, obstructing her view.

"IHOP?"

"I drive?" I ask.

"I kiss?" she asks back, just further continuing our ridiculous round of questions.

"perfect" I say and pull on my shirt.

"Let's. Go." Kyla yells angrily. God, she's cranky in the morning.

………

"so what's the rush to get to school anyways?" I ask Kyla who has quickly learned that when I have a girlfriend she gets the boot to the backseat.

"Since someone got a certain head cheerleader suspended, I have been bumped up to assistant captain temporarily" Kyla explains proudly.

"figures Madison would do something like that" Spencer says.

"so what are you two kids up to, today?" Ky asks.

"going to stop by the international house of pancakes and figure it out from there" Spencer explains, fiddling with the radio.

"you guys are going to IHOP?" Kyla groans. "man, I wish I was suspended" she huffs out making Spencer and I laugh.

"go slap Madison and you can join us" I tell her.

"yeah, cause she'd totally love that" Kyla says sarcastically. "… so I saw you left Meg in charge of your little group for a few days"

Spencer looks my way from the passenger seat to see my reaction. Honestly I don't know how to react. I mean, by no means did I 'leave her in charge for a few days', but I don't know if I'm really ready to tell Kyla I've been blackmailed into ditching my friends.

"yeah… how's she doing by the way?" I ask, just playing along with it. No need to stir up drama so early.

"from what I've seen she's a scarier version of you. But other than that, it's as if she's the new Ashley Davies"

"cool" I reply fakely. I guess I'll have that conversation another time. "Well, we're here. Get out" I tell her plainly.

"what? Can't you drop me off in the parking lot?" Kyla asks, seeing as her parked around the corner from the school.

"one, we're not allowed on school property. Two, we can't be seen together" I say referring to me and Spencer. "so once again, I repeat: get out"

"ugh, fine" she says hopping over the side of the car and walking towards the school.

"let's go get some food" I say and drive on down to IHOP.

As soon as we got to the restaurant we grabbed a booth in the corner and snatched a couple of menus. "so what are you going to do with Meg?" Spencer asks, obviously already decided on her meal.

"um I don't know, I figured I'd wait till I get back to school to figure it out" I say trying to avoid the topic in general.

"you're better off figuring it out ahead of time"

"well there's not much to figure out. I avoid Megan and everyone else for a while until people forget I was even the leader. By then no one will care"

"…so you just plan on being a loner for the rest of high school?"

"no, well maybe I'll make new friends or something, plus there's always Aiden… I guess… like I said, I don't know." I say and close my menu finally deciding what I want.

"hey, maybe if things go okay with the election we won't have to worry about the whole division thing" Spencer says.

"oh, I'm dropping out of the race" I inform her quickly.

"wait, what?!"

"well, who's going to vote for me when I have no friends? Knowing Meg, she'll probably find a way to snake into the candidacy and run on her own.

"Ashley, you can't just let her win!" Spencer argues.

"what am I supposed to do Spencer?" I snap back at her. "I lost my best friend, my reputation, tell me, what exactly am I supposed to do?!"

"…sorry" she says meekly. Shit…

"no… look, I didn't mean to flip out on you, it's just… I don't know how to deal with this situation"

"you're Ashley Davies, I thought you could deal with anything" she says with a playful smirk.

"oh please… that's just what everyone thinks. I just spit out the first thing that comes to mind and they all seem to believe me. I mean I could tell them to walk around naked and they would probably do it. It's as if they don't have an opinion of their own…"

"yeah, I know exactly what you mean"

"but I have no idea what to do when it comes to my own problems. It's like they all come to me for answers to their questions, but who do I turn to? Any advice oh wise one?" I ask her.

"do you really want me to just spit out the first thing that comes to mind?" she asks.

"your first thought is as good as mine"

"look, you know I'm not going to give you your answer, but I think you should just make sure you know what you want to begin with. What is the most important thing you want right now? Is it a best friend? …Your reputation?" she lists off. "…Madison dead?" she throws in there for fun.

"… a girlfriend?" I also add and I see her pause. "…I mean that's what you are right?"

"…yeah" she says with a shy smile. "of course I am. I think calling me a boyfriend would just be out of the question" she jokes.

"nah, I think you'd make a cute boyfriend" I tell her with confidence.

"oh really? Shall I try and sprout some facial hair while I'm at it?"

"oh yeah, I'm totally into the handsome and rugged look"

"well then I think you're dating the wrong person, sorry" she says getting up to leave, but before she even takes one step I pull her back down, still holding onto her hand.

"on second thought, you'll do" I whisper and give her a lasting kiss.

……………

After receiving our long deserved breakfast Spencer and I fell into an easy conversation.

"so what are we doing today?" the lovely blonde beside me asks.

"mm, I don't know, what do you want to do today?" I ask, pouring more syrup onto my pancakes and then handing the canister over to Spencer who pours more into her plate as well.

"well I was thinking… we could go get drunk at a bar, watch some strippers, maybe do a little diving with the sharks, I hear they're very friendly this time of the year, oh and we could-"

"-you're not going to choose are you?" she interrupts me with a straight face.

"not a chance" I say with a smirk.

"well how about a movie?" she suggests. Hm, dark, empty theatre, back row, I'm starting to like this.

"okay" I agree quickly.

"can't you stop think about kissing for like one second?" she asks.

"who says I was thinking about kissing?" I ask. Though it was on my mind.

"cause you didn't ask me what movie I wanted to see" she counters.

"oh, well what movie do you want to see?" I ask with a smirk.

"what does it matter, I'm going to be making out with you the entire time anyways" she says with a smirk as well.

"then it's settled, we shall make out at the movies" I declare.

"alright then!" she agrees full heartedly.

…………

"you have a little…" I start to laugh as I bring my fingers up to Spencer's face to wipe away the smudged lip gloss.

"oh god" she groans as she tries to get it off as well. "I think my lips are numb" she smirks.

"two hours of kissing will do that to a person"

"oh you seem very knowledgeable in the particular area." Spencer comments.

"I've been around the block once or twice"

"well I hope not too many times" she teases making me smile. "so, lunch?"

"sure. Mind if I pick up a friend to join us though?"

"sure thing"

………………

"you just can't get enough of me, can you?" Mac asks as she literally hops into my back seat, throwing her bag down beside her.

"oh, you caught us" I say sarcastically, driving off to the closest restaurant.

"so I take it by the smile on your face and slight banter in your voice that everything went okay?" Spencer asks.

"um, no not really, but it wasn't the end of the world" she admits. "some girls are still staring, some girls are avoiding me, but some girls are there for support"

"and the teachers?" I ask.

"oh, I discovered today which teacher's are pedophiles, that's for sure" Mac says making both Spencer and I laugh out loud. "so what did you two get up to today?"

"movies" Spencer and I answer at the same time.

"oh… that kind of movie" Mac mutters under her breath. "Ashley and I went to see a few of those."

"I don't know what you're talking about" I say noticing the teasing stare coming from Spencer.

"uh huh. And what movie did you see?" Mac asks.

"uhm…" shit, what was the name again? I look to Spencer and she's drawing a blank as well.

"that's what I thought"

"hey, be nice, we're taking you out for lunch after all" I argue.

"just stating the truth" she says, raising her hands up in defence. "so have you two heard anything about bitchy mcbitch at school yet?" Mac asks.

"nope. We're trying to avoid school for the next few days. Enjoy what little time we have together" Spencer answers for both of us.

"do you think Meg's going to go back on her promise?" Mac asks.

"she's usually not that type of girl, but then again, she wasn't the type of girl to out my ex-girlfriend either, but things change I guess" I say.

"and what about you two? Things still undercover at school between you?"

"uh, can we just talk about this later?" I ask. "I'm not in the mood to get into the whole situation now. As far as I'm concerned, I'm on vacation. And I'm going to enjoy it with my worst enemy turned girlfriend and girlfriend turned ex-girlfriend turned actual friend" I state.

"my how the titles have changed…" Mac says.

_The titles may have changed, but the people haven't. I guess I was just too wrapped up in what the labels were to realize that the people confined by those labels, aren't what we all believe they are. In fact, they're quite the opposite. It's like you can close your eyes to the things that you don't want to see but you can't close your heart to the things you don't want to feel._

_I guess I would label Mac my friend, Meg a bitch, and Spencer… let's just say if I had to print out a label to put on her, it'd say nothing more than 'LOVE', because in that one word, it describes it all._


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter

**Chapter 17**

(Spencer's POV)

_Is it really the big gestures that make a relationship? Sure buying gifts and throwing surprise parties make it seem like you have the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend. Or at least that's what some people think. Not me though, no I think it's the small things that make the biggest difference._

So the last three days have been nothing short of heaven. Because for those three days Ashley and I didn't have to worry about anything. We didn't have to act like we hated each other, we didn't have to kiss behind closed doors, we could be the couple we are inside, outside. But unfortunately all good things have to come to an end.

(Ashley's POV)

It's the first day back. And it already sucks. Spencer's back with her friends, and I'm… with no one. But I guess I should get used to it. I'm slowly walking through the quad, trying my best to ignore the curious stares. I slow down as I see Megan and the rest of the people I used to be proud to call my friends looking back at me. I can see Steph about to call me over, but before she can I just continue just walking on by.

This is what it's going to be like until I graduate probably. Not much I can do to change all of this.

I head to my locker just to put my books away and kill time when I notice Spencer down the hall hanging with her friends. The long blonde hair gives her away. Oh what I wouldn't do to be with her right now. She glances my way for a second, then back to her friends.

I guess I should get used to that too. I doubt it's going to change either.

As I finish putting my shit away I see Steph walking towards me from the quad to talk. Great, just what I wanted. I'm not really in the mood for this conversation.

"Hey Ash…" she calls me and I turn to face her, but just as I do the bell rings, signalling for all the students to get their ass to class.

"got to go" I say and shut my locker, making my way down to my first class. I wonder how long I'm going to be able to keep up this whole 'avoid at all costs' act.

…………….

By lunch time news of my loner-ness had spread through out the entire school. Not that that wasn't expected or anything, I'm just saying… these teenagers work fast. So here I am sitting at a random table in the quad… by myself. Did you expect otherwise?

"hey Ash" I hear a perky voice greet me. Oh Kyla. The only person willing to sit with me just happens to be related to me. That's sad. It's like going to prom with your cousin.

"hey" a deeper voice says. And of course with my sister comes her boyfriend. They both take a seat beside me with their pre-packed lunches.

"hey" I mutter back.

"what's with the face?" Kyla asks seeing as I'm not so cheery. Am I ever?

"well, gee, let me ask my friends here. Hey Meg, Stephanie? Why am I so moody?" I ask to nothing but thin air. We sit here for a second listening to the silence around us. "…oh that's right, I don't have any friends" oh sarcasm, how I've missed you.

"I think we should get you a therapist" Kyla states and Aiden can't help but nod along with his girlfriend.

"no… I just need friends"

"so why don't you just go sit with them?" Aiden nods towards Meg and everyone.

"I can't" I state simply.

"Why not?" Kyla asks.

"because… they're not really my friends anymore"

"what are you talking about? What the hell happened?" Kyla starts freaking out. "are you and Meg fighting again?"

"sort of" I mutter and I glance up to notice Spencer again. I can't help but wonder what's going through her mind.

"is this about…?" Kyla stars but doesn't dare finish it knowing Aiden's at the table.

"look I don't really want to talk about it" I say.

"are you and Mac doing the whole on and off thing?" Aiden asks, thinking that's who we're talking about.

"no, Mac and I are broken up, I've moved on" I say and just then I realize I've given away too much information already.

"moved on?" Aiden asks quickly. "to who?!"

"none of your business!" I snap at him, yeah I guess that was uncalled for. What ever.

"Ash, I was just asking…" he says apologetically.

"well maybe you should learn to stay out of my shit!" I yell. "both of you!" I say glancing at Kyla.

"Ashley, we were just being nice" Kyla states.

"well I don't need any of your sympathy" I say and walk off. I'm sure more than one pair of eyes are watching me storm off. I swear in a school like this there is no privacy what so ever. So the only place even close to solitude is the girls bathroom. Which is never empty.

I push the door open angrily and see a couple of freshman touching up their overly applied make up in the mirror. They both stop and look at me through the mirrors.

"out!" I yell angrily and they seem to scurry off pretty damn fast. At least I haven't lost my edge along with my friends. As soon as the door closes completely I take a deep breath and drop my bag on the floor. Leaning against one of the sinks I just take a second to stop thinking. Stop thinking about how screwed up everything is. And in that time span of, oh say 9 seconds, I hear the bathroom door slowly creak open. Without even bothering to look up I open my mouth.

"leave me alone Kyla" I say and I listen intently for the door to open up again and hear her walk out, but all I get is silence. I turn around slowly "I said leave m-" I stop realizing it's not Kyla.

"Hey" Spencer croaks out and I don't move.

"hi" I simply say, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. She locks the bathroom door from the inside and takes her time walking over to me, hands fiddling in front of her, not knowing quite what to say. "I didn't tell Kyla. I didn't _want _to tell Kyla" I inform her.

"she's going to find out eventually" Spencer states.

"I know, I guess… I just don't want to have to say it, because if I feel like if I say it, it's means it's real. And I just don't want to think that. I don't want to feel like I've lost all my friends." I confess.

"come here" she says softly as she wraps her arms around my torso and pulls me against her body. I wrap my arms around her neck, pulling her as closely as I can, so that my face is in the crook of her neck. And we stand like this for what seems like forever. I don't know why, but this helps. After all this shit I have to go through at school, and what ever, knowing that at the end of the day Spencer's going to be there for me, makes me think this _will_ get better.

"…I love you, you know that right?" Spencer whispers. It's weird, I think this is the first time she's actually said is directly to me since we've been together. I mean there was that whole in love with each other before we were together, but this is different. Now she's actually _saying_ it.

"I know." I state. "…I love you too. You're what gets me through it all" I say burying my face even further.

…………………

(Spencer's POV)

After the whole bathroom incident I couldn't help but feel partially responsible. Okay, fully responsible. So let's look at the situation… Ashley was best friends with Megan, whom I used to date, and now Megan is blackmailing Ashley into giving up her popularity all because of me. Yeah, definitely all my fault. So since it's my fault, it's my responsibility to fix things. But how?

I mean, I can't do anything without jeopardizing my reputation, and that's basically what Ashley's fighting for. I know, she's amazing, isn't she. But if Ashley could just have her best friend back, everything would be fine, wouldn't it? I mean, if Ashley and Megan were still friends then Ashley would be happy. So that's what I have to do. Make Ashley happy… but how?

Without compromising my reputation I need to find something that means more to Megan than being the leader of the rejects. And I think I know what that is. What's more appealing than being the leader of one half of King high?

…being the leader of the whole school.

As soon as it dawned on me what I needed to do I headed to Mrs. Cho's class room. Teacher's have no lives, I swear. So when I saw her sitting at her desk, marking work, I knew I wasn't interrupting anything. I knocked on the open door a couple of times and I see her lift her head.

"Spencer, what can I do for you?" Mrs. Cho asks.

"I uh, wanted to talk to you about the student election"

"sure, come on in" she says, nodding towards the desk in front of hers. I take a seat on it and she awaits my question.

"I was just curious, is it possible for someone else to join the running for president this late in the election?"

"well theoretically in this particular situation no, it's too late" damn. "however, this is only because we already have 2 candidates running. If you or Miss. Davies were to drop from the running, then the school would allow for another student to run"

"Really?" I ask excitedly.

"as long as the student gets the signatures of at least 25 students, then he or she is eligible to run. But only if one of the two current candidates drops out"

"why?" I ask curiously.

"if we were to only have one student running the presidential election would be a claim, meaning we'd be forced to choose that one student. But if someone decided last minute that they want to run, and they have the signatures, we would prefer that the school have the option of two or more candidates to choose from when voting"

"okay, that answers my question. Thanks for your time"

"no problem Spencer" she smiles and goes back to her work as I exit the class room. I guess I have a decision to make. School president or Ashley.

But in my mind, there's no competition.

…………..

After school I waited down the hall from Meg's locker anxiously seeing if she would stop by before she left. She usually did. When we were dating it's sort of where we would me. And just like clockwork I see Meg appear from around the corner and start her combination. Before she could get it open I popped out of nowhere and started pushing her towards the utility closet Ashley and I have familiarized ourselves with.

"what the hell?" Meg asks as I push her into the room and quickly shut the door behind us.

"unhappy with Ashley already?" she asks with a smirk, noticing our surroundings, probably assuming I'm here for a make out session.

"quite the opposite actually" I sneer watching her smirk fall from her face instantly.

"so what am I here for?" she asks with attitude now.

"I'm here to make a deal with the devil…"

"oh, well I'm always up for stealing away the souls of the innocent" she says.

"yeah, that much is obvious. Exhibit A: Mackenzie King" I roll my eyes.

"so what can I do for you?"

"how would you like to be president?" I ask and I see her eyebrows rise ever so slightly.

………..

After I talked with Meg I quickly exited the closet and made my way to my fifth period class, expecting Ashley to be sitting by herself. That just kills me. But before I can get to the class I feel my phone in my hand vibrate. I look down to see a text message from none other than my girlfriend.

**Going home. Not up for class. Ttyl.**

Great, well there goes my plan to talk to her about you know who. I guess I'll call her after school.

So I managed to endure the pain that is last period and headed off to the gym where we're holding cheerleading practice. Immediately I join the other girls who are already stretching and sit down between Madison and Kyla, who already seem to be having a conversation.

"so what's going on with your sister?" Madison asks Kyla.

"I don't know. She's having a few problems I guess." Kyla says and glances over at me for a second, going unnoticed by Madison of course.

"it's weird, it's like she dropped off the face of the planet and now her freak best friend has taken over. Not much has really changed. Same lesbian leader, different girl" she shrugs.

"yeah I noticed she wasn't in last period. Things must be pretty bad" I say solemnly, making it clear to both Kyla and Madison how I feel. See Madison thinks I don't really care all that much, but Kyla knows what I said is on a deeper level.

"I think she just wants to be left alone for a while" she hints to me. I nod and just continue to stretch.

But the thing is, the entire practice I couldn't help but think about Ashley. I mean, will everything really be okay in the end? Did I really make the right decision? Can Ashley and Meg have a friendship like they used to? Especially after all of this?

Well I don't know, but I'm going to try and figure it out.

……………….

After practice I waited around as the girls were leaving and pulled out my cell phone. Immediately I start dialling Ashley's number but after several rings it goes straight to her voice mail. I hang up and call again, getting the same result. I call one more time and decided to actually leave a message.

"hey, it's me. Call me when you get this, I want to talk to you about something. It's kind of important. Bye" I say and hang up. She better call me. As soon as everyone else is gone I head home.

Two hours later and I still haven't heard from Ashley, which is starting to scare me. I try calling her cell again, but there's no answer. So I decided to give her home phone a ring.

"Spencer, please, not now" Ashley says without even saying 'hello' first.

"well could you at least let me know that you're actually alive. You're ignoring all of my calls."

"I told you I just wanted to be alone"

"yeah, but I figured that we could be alone together" I hope.

"then that kind of defeats the point of being alone" she sighs into the phone. "look, why don't we hang out tomorrow, I just need today to… adjust"

Should I tell her, or keep it a surprise?

"I promise you, things _will_ get better" I assure her with the utmost confidence.

"don't make promises you can't keep, Spencer" she says and hangs up the phone.

………………

The next morning I arrive at school, just like usual and I spot Ashley coming into the quad. I try to get her attention, but it's no use. She's just staring straight ahead like nothing's bothering her. But its just a façade. A façade that most people can't see through. I'm not one of those people.

But maybe I don't have to do anything about it. Maybe, well hopefully, Meg will keep her end of the bargain. I follow Ashley's figure walking through the quad from my picnic table with my friends and watch as she walks by her old friends. Moment of truth.

"Hey Ashley" I hear Meg call out and I see Ashley stop walking. I can't really hear what they're saying anymore, but Ashley hesitantly walks back to her former friends and sits down with them. And just like that she's accepted back into her own circle.

_It's the smallest things that people fall in love with. The ability to see their true feelings, the ability to make them smile without even trying, the ability to make things right because you feel compelled to. But it's also the smallest things that can fuck everything up. _

…_Things like making a deal with the devil._

**So there's the next chapter, I hope you liked it. I particularly had fun writing this chapter. I'm not sure why. I just did. I know it started off nice and ended kind of… morbid (if that's even the right word to use in this situation), but I found I was drawn to writing it.**


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

**Okay, so SUPER short chapter. I know, but I just wanted to get out of my funk, and let me tell you it's not easy. I thought I was out of it before, but apparently not. This probably was one of my least favourite chapters because it seemed like everything came out so quickly, but anyways, I don't want to ruin anything for you, so read on my loyal readers! **

_Last year I took an accounting class… just to get my parents off my back about taking "important" classes. But consequently I learned something from that class. And no I'm not talking about the actual content of that class, I'm talking more in the life lessons kind of way. Now in accounting the number one rule is that everything balances. For every good thing there is, you need a bad thing to balance it out. _

At lunch I managed to sneak Ashley away from her friends, despite the fact she's been attached to them all morning. But you can't blame her. She's just a girl who misses her friends.

"I mean it's crazy isn't it? All of a sudden it's like one second I'm miss. Loner, the next it's like I'm right back where I started. I mean it's great, don't get me wrong, but something isn't right. It can't be" Ashley babbles as I lean against the inside of the girl's bathroom door as she fixes her make up at the sink. I still haven't told her. But the way she smiles when she talks about her friends is enough to melt your heart. Maybe I should tell her now before things get out of hand.

"hey Ash?"

"yeah?" she asks, looking at me through the mirror.

"look, I know how excited you are about your friends, but you have to know something…" and with that being said I see the excitement fall from her face. She already knows I had something to do with it now.

"what?"

"about Meg and everyone, with everything being okay, it isn't exactly… _natural_" wrong word, wrong time, but it was needed.

"well just tell me" she says wanting to get it over with. Like ripping a band aid off.

"yesterday… after you went home, I kind of went to see Meg…" I start off solemnly.

"Spencer, what exactly did you do?"

"I… sort of made a deal with her." And before she can ask what kind of deal, I cut her off. "the kind where in exchange for me dropping out of the running for student body president you get to go back to your old life…"

"and…?" she asks, knowing there is more.

"and… Megan takes my place in the running"

"Spencer…" she sighs harshly. "why would you do that?! You have no idea what you've done" she tells me angrily.

"Ashley, you got your friends back, you're happy, it doesn't matter." I tell her.

"no you don't get it. Megan is going to manipulate the competition. Plus, how can you be so sure she's not just going to drop me from the group?! You don't know what she's capable of"

"don't be so over dramatic, Ashley. I did it for you. I thought you'd be happy" guilt card, shuffled and played.

She sighs again, this time not so angry. She walks over to me and laces both hands together. "look, I'm ecstatic that you would do something like this for me… it's just I wish you hadn't. Meg's not a person to work with. She works angles. Angles that only work in her favour. And she's not going to stop until she reaches the top"

"are you sure? I mean it's possible that she could…"

"…I'm sure" she interrupts me. Well fuck me. I've pretty much screwed myself over. Yet, I'm not as angry as I probably should be. "is it too late to get back into the race for you?"

"yeah, I swapped with Meg this morning. It's done."

And like that, silence falls upon us. Just the two of us in the bathroom, still holding hands, at a loss of what to do next.

"I can't believe you even talked to that bitch" Ashley laughs quietly, making me laugh along with her.

"oh fuck, it was scary as hell" I say, making her laugh even harder.

"I bet it was" she smiles and gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, letting the kiss fall into a comforting hug. "thank you" she whispers into my ear.

"anything for you" I say resting my head on her shoulder.

"on the positive side, there's really not much more that we could do to make this situation worse" she pulls back and smiles at me jokingly.

But she's right. What could possibly make this situation worse? I've completely gotten myself kicked out of the presidential race, and consequently lead to my girlfriend's demise in her social life. I would kick myself in the ass right now if I could. But through it all, I still have Ashley, you know? That's one thing I don't really ever have to worry about.

And it dawns on me.

It's something I don't have to worry about. Why? Because it just is. It's one of the few stable things in my life. It just is.

"Are you okay with us?" I ask randomly. And I do mean randomly.

"what are you talking about?" she asks confusedly.

"I mean with me not being honest with everyone, with our private relationship"

"sure" she says, but I don't believe her. I didn't believe her the first time she said it either.

"come with me" I whisper and grab her hand, pulling her out the door of the bathroom and down the hallways.

"Spencer, where are you taking me?" She whispers loudly, trying to ignore the stares we're already getting from holding hands.

"I realized something" I state simply.

"want to tell me what that something is?" she asks like it's obvious. We reach the quad and I look out to the vast population of the student body. I turn back to Ashley so that I'm only staring at her and into her eyes.

"you know how people have that really big fear in their lives that trump every other fear that they have at the time… well I realized mine is a stupid fear. I mean who am I to be afraid of what Megan thinks or what Madison thinks… or who ever. I faced Megan yesterday, and despite all she has done in the past, is doing in the present and will do in the future, I realize I can take it. I realized that if I can face someone like Meg… I can probably do a lot more."

"what do you mean… a lot more?" she asks, already knowing what I'm going to say."

"_more_" I say with a smile and continue pulling her further into the quad so that I'm at the table with all of my friends, which just happens to be very close to Meg's table. "girls" I say, getting their attention. They all turn around to see Ashley standing beside me, and are obviously confused as hell.

"hey Spence, Ash" Kyla says politely, probably anticipating what I'm going to say next.

"as my friends there's something I need you to know" I say proudly, secretly gripping Ashley's hand tighter. Or is she gripping mine tighter?

"yes?" Madison asks, looking down at our clasped hands.

"I'm gay" I say without hesitation, only holding up our clasped hands as proof. "and I'm dating Ashley" I say directly to the girls, who all seems to have their jaws on the floor, but something else tells me half the school is listening in right now. Funny thing is, I'm not the one frozen with fear… Ashley is. It's cute actually. It's like she's scared for both of us.

Before any of the girls can say another word I turn to my right, passed Ashley to see the small smirk daring to play of Meg's face. "oh and hey Meg?" I call out. This time making sure that many students are listening.

"yeah?" she yells back.

"fuck you!" I yell with a little laugh added into the mix for fun and go back to my friends. Who still seem to have their mouths wide open, some what.

"well it's about time" Kyla says as she gets up to hug us both.

_Now, accounting as a stupid of a class as it may be, it taught me this important life lesson. And let me tell you it works. Now in life things might not always balance out for you. That's why I took it into my own hands to balance out my life. With something bad, comes something good. From now on, I'm going to make sure my life works out that way. _

**Now you can do one of three things right now. 1: close the window and go do something more interesting than read my lame short chapter. 2: hit the back button at the top of the page and go read another spashley story worth reading. Or 3: hit the review button at the bottom of the page and see what kind of feelings come out. Now if you happen to choose option 3 I thank you a head of time for providing me with self esteem. Because that's what your reviews are. Anyways, thanks again, your reviews make life worth living.**


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

**Blown away. Astonished. Surprised. Ecstatic. All these words can't even begin to describe how you all made me feel. Seriously, in the last chapter I mentioned the fact that I didn't even like writing that chapter that much, but I have NEVER gotten so many reviews for just one chapter. You have all broken my previous record (which was like 41), to count right now I already have 60 and it's still growing! You guys are amazing. In fact you're all so amazing that b/c of your reviews I felt so good about myself I wrote another chapter. So I hope you enjoy it.**

_Don't you just hate how you have one friend in the whole wide world, thinking he or she is great, only to find out they betray you worse than anyone else could? Because they know more about you than anyone? Betrayal is the worst feeling of them all. It combines hatred, fear, sadness, basically every emotion you could gladly live without. You could even say betrayal is the sum of all evil._

"So I was thinking… since we're together _publicly_ we don't actually need me to run for president" I say trying to get out of this whole public speech thing.

"oh no, no, no, no, no" Spencer says taking a seat beside me. _Extra close._ "you're not getting out of it that easy. It's just one little speech" she says knowing that that's what I'm afraid of.

"…in front of 1000 students" I add.

"okay, well I'll help you with your speech, don't worry." She tries to comfort me. "plus, if you back out now Megan automatically wins" she has a point. That's kind of the last thing I want. Megan controlling the school.

"oh Spence" I groan. "you know guilt always works on me"

"I know. Why do you think I use it?" she smirks. I put my head down on top of my arms on the lunch table and just sit in my own misery.

"hey" she says as she puts her head down on my arms as well, placing her head beside mine. "don't worry, okay? All we need to do is write a kick ass speech and get your cute little face plastered on a few posters around the school."

"ugh" I groan out again. "Spencer have you failed to realize that two of the most popular girls in school no longer have any friends" I remind her as we look down towards the empty cheerleader table. After things went down Spencer's friends didn't take it too well. The only people who _didn't_ care were Aiden and Kyla, who went to make out some where.

"yeah… I know" she says sadly. "but they'll come around don't worry. But until then we'll have to manage on our own"

"you sure they're going to come around?" I ask, though it probably doesn't help at all.

"no, but it's better than not believing at all."

"you're right" I agree. "now in celebration of all this goodness happening all around I think we should skip last period and go have some fun. Maybe see a few old faces" I smirk.

"I was hoping you were going to say something like that" Spencer says as she gets up from the table and extends her hand to me. I take her hand, kiss the back of it quickly and we head off campus together.

……………

"we're outside" I talk into my cell phone and quickly hang up. Spencer and I lean up against my car and wait for the doors to open. Within just a minute or two, the double doors swing open and out walks Mac in her cute little uniform.

"I was enjoying lunch you know" she says placing one hand on the hip and giving us one of _those_ looks.

"oh isn't that too bad. But we don't really care. We have news" Spencer says excitedly.

"Meg got hit by a truck?" Mac asks interestedly. (A/N: idea thanks to ElloEllo9 lol)

"not that good" I say. "Although Spencer did tell Megan 'fuck you'…" I smirk.

"nice" Mac agrees with a head nod.

"not the point." Spencer adds. "I, with the utmost confidence, came out to my friends…" she says proudly. Look at her go.

"with the whole school listening in behind her…" I add, and I see the smile on Mac's face grow.

"good for you Spencer. Congratulations. It takes balls to do something like that"

"Ew" Spencer mutters. Mac and I both can't help but roll our eyes.

"so how'd people at school take it?" she asks curiously.

"ooh, not so good" Spencer answers. "especially my friends… but you know, I didn't really expect any differently" that's a lie. She expected her friends to be there for her. I kind of had to make up for it. But I'm okay with it. She's been there for me. Who am I not to be there for her?

"what about you? How's everything going since it all went down?" I ask Mac.

"actually pretty good. Ever since it all happened I've lost a few friends, but I gained a lot more than I lost. It seems now a days being homo_phobic_ is actually worse than being homo_sexual_." She says with a small smile. There's my old Mac.

"I hear that" I say wrapping my arms around my two favourite people. "alright, you better get back to class little one" I tell Mac. "wouldn't want you missing your education"

"I'm the same age as you, you know" she reminds me.

"but you're so easy to tease" I tease her.

"Spencer will you please tell her I am just as mature as she is?" Mac begs Spencer.

"of course you are, Mackie!" Spencer yells in a cutesy voice as we run back to the car.

"ugh! You guys know I hate that nick name!" she yells.

"bye sweetie!" I yell. "remember things will always get better!"

……………

"so how come we're here? Don't you think you're going to get into trouble?" I ask Spencer.

"oh please… mom, I'm home!" Spencer yells out into her own house as we enter the front door.

"Spence? What are you doing home so early?" Paula yells out from the upstairs. As soon as she comes down and sees me I see her face break out into a smile. She's almost as excited to see me as Spencer is sometimes. "Ashley!"

"Hey Paula" I say with a genuine smile. For some reason, her peppy-ness always seems to get passed on to me.

"girls don't you have school?"

"well something happened today and I thought you should know…" Spencer says with a small creeping smile on her face.

"another fight?" she asks, as she takes Spencer face in her hands examining for cuts and bruises and such.

"no" Spencer says pushing her mother's hands away. "I told everyone…" she say knowing her mother of all people will know exactly what she's talking about.

"you…?" she asks, eyes starting to get wide in excitement,

"yep!" she yells proudly.

"oh honey!" Paula says pulling Spencer into a breath taking hug… literally.

"yeah, so we just wanted to swing by to tell you" Spencer says trying to get out of the hug.

"well you can't leave now! We have to celebrate" Paula says.

"well we kind of were…" Spencer says pointing to me and her.

"oh…. _Oh_" Paula says. Oh god, she cracks me up sometimes. "well you two have fun. Be safe!"

"yes mother. Goodbye mother" Spencer says.

"see you later, Paula" I say and follow Spencer out the door. "so where to next?" I ask as we head to my car. "your dad?"

"no" she replies, getting into the car.

"brothers? Cause we could go back to their school if you want…?" I suggest.

"nah, they'll all figure out later…" Spencer says, as we both strap our seat belts on. "I was thinking more like going back to your place…"

"to tell Kyla? She already knows, plus she's still at school" I tell her.

"I wasn't really thinking about Kyla… I was thinking more about you and me… home alone… and some time spent _celebrating_" oh, well in the case.

"you know… I'm starting to think you should come out more often" I smirk and put the car in gear.

………………

"mm" Spencer giggled as I kissed her face again and again. I wrapped my arm around her body, pulling her closer into my side, letting the sheets still cover our bodies. She can't help but smile and kiss me again.

"you really are happy about everything, aren't you?" I ask.

"how could I not be, you know?" she says with her blindingly bright smile. And it confuses the hell out of me how happy and confident she can be after everything. I mean, she's nothing like me. I was devastated to know my best friend turned my back on me, but not Spencer. No. Spencer just took it and rolled with it. Sometimes I just don't understand her. It's a first for me.

"and you're okay with Madison and everyone?" I ask doubtedly. And I can see it in her eyes how she's getting tired of me asking this question.

"they'll come around" she says trying to make herself believe it more than anyone. She lies back down in the bed, pulling the covers up even higher.

"Well if I haven't told you already… I'm so proud of you" I whisper into her ear, kissing her cheek afterward.

"mm, thank you. Now about the election. I was thinking, tomorrow after school we could make some posters and work on your speech. We could even drag Kyla along to help us out" Spencer suggests.

"sure" I smile.

"good, because I sure as hell am not letting Megan win this thing."

"Agreed"

"we can get someone to design a poster for you on the computer and we'll get it printed. Okay?"

"anything you want"

"are you just agreeing with me because I slept with you or do you actually care what I'm saying?" She asks me.

"sorry what? I was distracted by your naked body" I joke and I feel her push me playfully. "I'm kidding, a little bit of both I guess"

"and yet… I think I'm okay with that"

……………

"so are you two excited about today?" Kyla asks, as the three of us get out of the car and head towards the school.

"of course!" Spencer replies giddily. What's today?

"wait, what?" I ask confusedly as I halt in place, wondering what the hell they're talking about.

"come on you" Spencer says grabbing my hand and dragging me towards the school.

"what are we doing?" I ask, still not quite understanding what's going on.

"what do you think we're doing? We're going to school" she states like it's the most obvious thing ever. Am I seriously missing something?

"then why the big deal?" I ask.

"because…" she starts, but doesn't bother finishing it. Instead, we walk straight into the quad, hands clasped together, hundreds of eyes all secretly on us. Now I get it. I let go of her hand and wrap my arm around her waist, pulling her into my side. I guess I never realized how big of a deal it was to Spencer that we do this. I mean I should have known that, but I guess it's better late than never. We walk across the quad and straight to her locker.

"um I have to go do something in the library, but I'll meet you during free period?" I ask.

"sure. I'm going to see if I can get a word in to Madison before then."

"alright bye" I say giving her a sloppy kiss on the cheek, and a cheesy grin, and I'm on my way.

………..

By the time free period rolled around I was already anxious to see Spencer. You know, find out how things went with her friends… kiss her… work on the campaign… kiss her again… the list just goes on. When I arrive in the empty library I head to the back corner where we usually see each other, but I find Spencer talking to someone else. It's Madison and one of her loyal followers. I can't be bothered to learn her name. Instead of interrupting I stand behind the shelf for a minute just listening to what's going on. It's not exactly easy with the whispers.

"the bottom line is you lied to us!" Madison whispers harshly.

"I was afraid!" Spencer says back.

"of what!?"

"of this! I was afraid that this was exactly how you were going to react. And I was right! I mean look at how you're yelling at me for telling the truth"

"oh, you mean the truth that you hid from all of us? God and _Ashley Davies_?! What's that all about!?" she says. Okay, come on, I'm not that bad.

"oh come on, you know the only reason you don't like her is because she did the same thing I did a few years ago."

And I can tell by the lack of retaliation Madison doesn't know what to say exactly. "look. As friends all I asked for was honesty, and then you go do something stupid like this? You've really screwed this one up, Spencer" Madison hisses and turns around with her friend. But when I say hisses I don't actually mean she hissed like a snake… you know. What ever. Anyways, as soon as they take off, not noticing me of course. I head over to Spencer who thinks I just arrived, and missed the entire verbal fight.

"hey you" I say giving her a kiss on the cheek but not sitting down just yet.

"hey" she says with her fake smile. You know the one where she's like 'I'm okay… at least that's what I want you to think' kind of a smile.

"everything okay?" I ask knowing that she's going to say everything is fine.

"yeah, sure." She looks away for a second holding back her tears.

"Spence" I say quietly putting my hand to her cheek. She still won't look at me. She's too stubborn to show me her tears. And I get it. I would feel the same way. That's why I don't know what to do in this sort of situation.

"um listen, I can't work on the election thing right now. I… kind of just need to let out some steam. You don't mind do you?" she asks, with watery eyes and faux smiles.

"no, of course not…" I can understand the need to be alone. We all need it sometimes. It's what keeps us sane.

"okay, um after school though. I promise" she says.

"what about practice?" I ask her. Cheer leading practice to clarify.

"something tells me today's not the best day to go."

"okay" I agree. "I'll meet you at your locker, after school. Don't flake on me" I tell her jokingly.

"never" she whispers, gives me a kiss on the lips and walks away before anything more can be said. Now I may not know how to deal with this, and I may not know why Spencer doesn't talk to me about it.

But if there's one thing I know for sure… it's the fact that I need to fix this.

_What if it wasn't a friend that betrayed you? I mean, yeah I have one of those, but for Spencer, it was never a friend that betrayed her. Sometimes it never is. Sometimes it's yourself that betrays you. Confusing – yes. In Spencer's case it was never a friend that betrayed her. It was her eyes. I've been told that the eyes are the windows to the soul. But when that window shuts, it shuts everyone else out. Whether you want to or not. It's not a function of the mind. It's a function of the soul. _

…_But sometimes, all you need to do is find a way to open that window back up._

**Woohoo, another chapter. Yay. So just to let you guys in on a little secret I have this sort of inner competition going on with myself. More like a goal I guess. See my last spashley story (Obtain the unobtainable) has a total of 478 reviews, to date. Now my intentions with this story are to beat that previous record, shatter it even. So I don't want you guys to feel like you HAVE to review. I just wanted to let you guys know. So don't review unless you want to. Thanks again!**


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

_Is change really all that good? I mean I like to keep things the way they are. Especially if they work in my favour. But then again, I'm sure everyone is like that. You know, the whole don't fix something that's broken. But what if it's not broken, but you can improve it vastly? Or what if it was broken and you didn't even know it. See, change complicates things. _

Murder? Illegal. Kidnapping? Illegal. Stuffing into broom closet? Possibly assault. See I'm looking for a way to talk to Madison… or just get rid of her. What ever. Okay, well since all of the above seem to be 'immoral' – whatever the hell that is – I'm going to have to settle with bombardment of some sorts. After Spencer jetted out of the library I managed to find Madison about to walk into class late, but before she could I grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the girl's bathroom.

"what the hell?" she squeals. Instead of answering her, I turn around, shut the door and make sure it's well locked.

"oh god, I just had this conversation with Spencer" she sneers.

"shut up, Madison" I say calmly.

"I mean you'd think walking away from someone would get through to both of you, but I guess not."

"I said _shut up,_ Madison!" I yell seriously this time. She immediately silences her self, trying her best not to show fear.

"fine… what do you want?" she asks.

"you know what I want" I state. And she does. Duh.

"you know, this is the second time that this has happened to me. You know, my best friend joining the freak circle. All I have to do is get a new best friend"

"what are you? A robot?!" I yell. "what's the matter with you? Spencer is your _best friend_. How could you turn your back on her like this?"

"me? She _lied_ to me. She's the one who turned her back on me. Don't even try to say she didn't"

"she was afraid, Madison!" I yell. "you know fear… it's an emotion. I'm sure you're not familiar with is seeing as you don't have a soul, but try to understand"

"you know, I don't know why I put up with this, I'm leaving!" She heads for the door, but before she can I step in her way.

"…wait. Look I didn't come here to yell at you" sort of. She stops in her tracks and takes a couple of steps back. "listen, Spencer doesn't handle being alone too well. She might not show it, but she doesn't. Now, you're her best friend. You hang out all the time, you were her first friend here, you're co-captains on the cheerleading squad. Bottom line… _you're friends_"

"so?" Madison asks.

"_so_?" I repeat. "so – don't do this to her. She doesn't deserve it, and you know it. Spencer has been nothing but nice to you and what do you do to her? You turn your back. Look, I know we were friends before, and after everything happened I expected you to leave like you did. And I get it, our friendship is over, I'm okay with that. But you need to grow up, Madison. You need to change. I know I called you a bitch and whatever, but _I need_ you to prove me wrong… _I need_ you to prove to me that you can be a better person. Don't turn Spencer into another me, because Spencer deserves so much more than that… and you know it"

The echoing walls of the bathroom reflect and leave a slight ringing in our ears, just like the silence. Neither of us says another word, mainly because I don't have any more to say, and Madison is just… stupid, I don't know. Slowly she walks up beside me, unlocks the door and leaves. I'm not quite sure what it means, but by cold stares and non-existent conversation, I can tell it's not the ending I hope for. Now I wasn't expecting hugs and a reconstructed friendship, but you know… I was expecting some sort of reaction.

,,,,,,,,,,,

After school I got home a little early. Spencer told me she'd find a ride to my place as soon as she stops off at cheerleading practice for a few minutes. Until then I told her I would work on my speech.

Yeah right.

This speech is a bitch. I _still_ don't have any clue what the hell I'm supposed to say. Well apparently, after asking around, I'm supposed to talk about myself, and why people should vote for me. FYI, I'm screwed if Meg wins. My life as I know it will become a living hell. The world will end. I will fall into depression.

Okay, _so_ overdramatic, but that's just who I am. Well, if this speech is supposed to be about me then I shall pull out my private book. I reach underneath me bed and pull out a sort of leather, diary-looking type book. And yes, I realize I should probably come up with a more creative name for it instead of "my private book", but it doesn't really matter, because no one knows about it. Hence the name "my private book". Now see it's sort of this collection of items in my life in which I cherish, am proud of, or for some reason feel compelled to keep.

I haven't actually looked at in a while. Nothing worthy enough to put in it, I guess. Okay, so I guess I'm kind of making a big deal out of this book, it's not that secretive. It's more like a picture album, but with a few extra things. Yeah, I have the pictures of me and Meg when we were little, pictures of my dad, a picture or two of me and Ky, and a few other things. Like the friendship bracelet Meg made me in 4th grade, my birth certificate.

I went through that phase where I thought I was adopted and demanded this piece of paper.

I have tickets to my first concert, the piece of paper saying I passed my driving test, the list just goes on… But the most important part about this book is the fact that it contains things I've had swimming around in my head. Like ideas, I mean. Just ideas or questions that I had but never wanted to deal with. So I put them down on a piece of paper and put them in this book so I wouldn't have to deal with them again.

Usually when I come back to read the book I clean out those questions and only leave the important ones behind. But there has always been one sheet of paper I couldn't get rid of. I have no idea when I wrote, why I wrote, or for whom I wrote it for. But it's always been there. It's in my writing so I assume it is mine. I think it's been in here ever since I created this book.

Hold me?

Kiss me?

Love me?

Who knows why the hell I wrote those questions. It was definitely before I met Mac, but you know, I never felt the need to come back to these questions. I guess in the back of my mind I expected someone to answer these questions. Either that, or I expected myself to tell someone the answer to these questions. But I couldn't. Never could. I never could find the answers to these questions.

I guess that's why they're so important to me. They have always been and perhaps always will be, questions I don't have the answers to. I mean usually I have answers to everything, even if I'm BS-ing everything. I couldn't even make up answers to these. How am I supposed to? I mean it's obviously about love. But the thing is, I thought I had love the first time, but I was wrong. When Spencer came around it was just so easy that I fell into it. So maybe that's it. Maybe they're for-

-the door bell rang, interrupting my thoughts. I quickly close up the book and throw it somewhere under my bed, rushing to get to the front door.

I head down stairs and open the door to see Spencer standing there, trying to look happy. Trying being the operative word here.

"hey" I say.

"hi" she says taking a step into the house.

"how'd it go?" I ask as I shut the door.

"um it didn't. They cancelled practice so I couldn't talk to any of them." She tells me.

"come on, let's get to work" I say trying to get her mind off the subject.

"kay, cool, mind if I grab some water first?"

"I'll get it for you, I'll meet you upstairs" I say and give her a kiss on the cheek, as we go our separate ways.

Just as I'm about to go upstairs, drink in hand, the doorbell rings again. Ky, probably forgot her keys again. I open the door only to find someone who isn't Kyla, or should I say someones.

"uh…" what do I say?

"shut up" Madison cuts me off as she and the squad enter my house behind her. "let's just get one thing straight – if you can even think that way – we are here for Spencer, and only Spencer. And it just so happens that Spencer is trying to help you, so if in someway we end up helping you just remember it's only because of Spencer" okay that was so confusing. But I think I got it.

"upstairs" is about the only thing I can mumble, still surprised that all these girls are in my house. They head up stairs and turn in to my room, most likely finding Spencer.

As I finally realize what has happened I head up stairs and back into my room to see all the girls helping out with my campaign and Madison being strangled by Spencer. I mean hugged.

As soon as Spencer let's Madison out of her death grip she giddily skips over to me and pulls me into another death grip.

"thank you" she whispers.

"what makes you think I did any of this?" I ask. Thought I did.

"because it seems lately when ever I'm happy the source always leads back to you" she says and gives me a loud kiss on my forehead. She jumps back over to her friends and starts helping out with my campaign posters. Guess I can't complain.

_A few weeks ago if someone had told me the entire cheerleading squad, including their two captains, would be in my room, helping me out with my presidential campaign, I would have laughed my ass off. But I guess some things change. See, change complicates things._

…_Or at least that's what I used to believe._

**Okay, I know, really short chapter, or at least for me it is. I just HAD to get something posted. It was killing me slowly from the inside. (and on a side note, I know the updates are coming slowly, but there are only a few chapters left in the story. Now all I have to do is finish them. ) Anyways, I hoped you like it. BTW I updated my profile. It actually has stuff about me on there in case you were interested. It didn't really have anything before, so I decided to get a little more personal. **


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

**Okay so this chapter and the next chapter are kind of like a part A and a part B. you'll get it once you read them. I haven't actually written the part B to this chapter, but I thought you guys needed an update.**

_Ever had really bad luck? Just out of the blue everything started turning for the worse? Like how you're driving somewhere and managed to hit every single red light along the way. Yeah, well that looks like that's my day today. Not the red lights thing, but the all around bad luck thing. _

I can't do this. Nope. And no one can force me. I'm not going to do it. I can't. There are just so many things going against me. My speech is horrible, my mouth is dry, I look like a freak, and I don't even know where Spencer is!

In case you're wondering I'm back stage right now with the other candidates for the other council positions, shaking like a porn star in church. I have my cue cards which are half covered in coffee, and I can barely read anything. If there was ever a pivotal moment in my life where I would be allowed to freak out, it's now.

We go on in 5 minutes - in front of the whole school - to give our speeches. Everyone gets two minutes, the presidents get how ever long they need. Which right now is looking like 30 seconds for me. That's 10 seconds of awkward staring at the audience, 10 seconds of vomiting on stage, then 10 seconds for me apologizing for vomiting on stage. Sounds like a plan.

Where the hell is Spencer?! I'm seriously freaking out now.

So let me tell you my day so far. Get comfortable, because it sucked and I plan on whining about it…

……..

I basically stayed up all night writing this speech. I think I got about 45 minutes of sleep. I don't even remember what my speech is about, but I remember being happy about how it turned out. Either that or I just go frustrated and gave up. I don't know, I'm too tired to remember.

"Ashley!" Kyla says bursting into my room, not bothering to knock. As usual. "Ashley!" she says excitedly again as she jumps onto my bed and me at the same time.

"what?" I groan out.

"get ready! It's the day of your speeches. And since you're going to be up on that stage representing out family, and the cheerleaders you have to look good!" she says happily as she gets off of me and runs to my closet. I don't think she got the message that I'm not moving.

"hello?" we hear a voice call out from downstairs. It's Spencer. Yeah, still not going to move from my spot.

"upstairs!" Kyla yells from the bottom of my closet.

"where is everyone?" Spencer asks as she walks into my room, not obviously seeing that I am hidden under my covers and Kyla is under my clothes.

"hey Spencer!" Kyla jumps out of the closet and I can tell without even looking she freaked Spencer out.

"hey!" Spencer yells back, obviously shocked. "where's my girlfriend?" she asks. Before Kyla can answer I raise my hand from under the covers and let her find me. "oh wait, I think I see a hand. Found her!" she says as she grabs my hand giving it a kiss and climbing into bed with me.

"great, then maybe you can convince her to get out of bed and get ready" Kyla says. I let out a quiet groan that only Spencer can hear and I think she gets the hint.

"okay, how about I take care of that and you can take care of getting her coffee" I knew I had a smart girlfriend.

"done!" she yells and hops out of the room. Obviously she's been up for a while nurturing a few cups of coffee by herself.

"thank you" I say softly without barely cracking my eyes open.

"sure, but I've only bought you a few minutes while she gets that coffee. Plus, she seems to be going about six times as fast today. Did you give her something?" she asks thinking I've given her some sort of drug. Not my thing.

"I wish. Then it would explain her abnormality."

"_abnormality_? Using big words already? You must be fully awake then" she says with a smirk as she rips off the blanket on top of me and heading into my closet.

"noooo." I groan again, trying to scramble for my warmth.

"oh come on you baby" Spencer teases me. I hate being teased.

"I'm not a baby" I retaliate. And I see her stick her head back out of my walk in closet.

"of course not" she teases again. "but just to prove it you have to get up and give me a kiss over here…" she says. She'll do anything for my kisses. Can you blame her? With a smirk, I get out of my bed and strut over to my very hot girlfriend. Just as I'm about to kiss her she shoves a handful of clothes in my direction quickly halting any kiss that was about to happen.

"…but first you have to get dressed" she says with a smirk and starts to walk away.

"that was mean" I say with a solemn face, holding today's outfit in hand.

"fine then." She stops walking away and turns back around. "how about I help you get dressed then?" she suggests _suggestively_.

"is this the kind of dressing where we might be late for school?" I ask.

"hm… maybe" she says cutely and places her hands on my hips and starts to slowly lift up my shirt. She tosses the shirt to the floor, still letting her hands rest on my hips. Slowly she leans in to start kissing my neck, but before we can actually get anywhere we hear a crash from downstairs consisting of many fallen pots and possibly glass. Kyla.

"it's okay!" we hear her yell from downstairs. "only a few pots fell… and there's barely any blood" oh god.

I look at Spencer as she pulls back, we both know what ever was going to happen is now over. Stupid sisters.

"I'll go take care of her. You just get dressed" Spencer says as her body pulls away from mine.

"but what about _my_ needs?" I whine.

"if you're lucky, I'll take care of you later" she winks and heads out my bedroom door, closing it behind her.

And I repeat: stupid sisters.

……….

See now I'm just in a bad mood. Since Kyla hurt herself this morning nothing happened between me and Spencer… plus I didn't even get any coffee. Kyla said something about a bunch of cups falling and her trying to catch them. As a result she has some sort of cut on her hand and I have no coffee. And since it took so long to bandage danger ranger over here we didn't have time to stop for coffee on the way to school. So I think it's safe to say I'm in a bad mood. And to top it all off, today is the day of the speeches. Fuck my life.

"look don't worry everything's going to be fine" Spencer tries to comfort me from my passenger seat. Yeah I sat Kyla's ass in the back seat.

"says the girl who already had her morning coffee and doesn't have to give a speech in front of the entire school" I say to her as I pull into my usual parking spot. We get out of the car and Kyla waves goodbye as she fast walks it over to the cheerleaders. Yeah I'd run if I were her too.

"hey" Spencer says trying to grab my attention. "_hey_" she says a little more sharper. I finally look at her and her blue eyes looking back at me. Ooh, I totally just got that feeling.

Okay, well you know that feeling where you just feel _so_ out of place? Well its like that feeling but in a good way. I know it might not make sense. But its like I feel so out of my skin that I feel like its exactly where I belong. I know it might not make sense, but it feels right.

"look you have your speech and I've read it over a million times, you're going to do great" she says as she hands my the piece of paper with my speech scribbled on it.

"I know, its just its like if I lose today… everything we've been working hard towards will all be for nothing, it'll all be like it didn't mean anything..."

"is that what you think?" she asks.

"never mind" I probably shouldn't have said anything.

"no, Ashley" she says trying to get my attention but I just grabbed my bag and started walking away. I could hear her still calling my name but I didn't want to turn back. I didn't want to face it all.

I turn the corner to get away for a few minutes and go over my speech only to see Megan at her own little booth trying to win over some last minute votes. And the ironic thing is… she's giving out free coffee. God I hate that bitch. I pull out my cue cards and read over the same lines just so I can feel comfortable. Its not working too well.

"vote for Meg" she and her minions say. Those used to be my minions. God, when did I start calling them minions? What ever. I turn around to head in the other direction when I'm called back by a familiar voice.

"Ashley" Meg says, I glance back only to see her jogging over to me with a free coffee in hand. Yeah right.

"what?" I ask coldly.

"just wanted to say hi before the speeches. Nervous?" she asks with a smirk. She knows I hate shit like this.

"nope" I say calmly. Oddly enough, being able to stand up against Meg is the only thing that actually gives me confidence. "how about you?"

"just peachy" she says cheerfully. Bitch. "well I just thought I would come over here to offer you a coffee. You look pretty bad this morning" she says trying to pass it off as a joke.

"I'm good" I tell her pushing the coffee back towards her.

"no I insist" she says trying to push the coffee into my hand.

"no, really" I tell her pushing it back.

"take it" she says and we manage to push it both towards each other at the same time, and of course it just _happens_ to spill and guess in who's direction? Mine. Just to make a bad day worse she just had to spill coffee all over me.

"you _did not_ just do that!" I gasp and I take a step back from her.

"oh, sorry" she says fakely with a smirk. That bitch.

"I'm going to kick your a-"

"-ashley!" Spencer says as she and the other cheerleaders pull me back from beating that bitch down.

"oh no, don't tell me you're actually hanging out with the cheerbitches now" Meg says with an increasing smirk.

"you better step off and return to your freak circle" Madison threatens.

"and if I don't?"

"well its about 8 cheerleaders and one pissed off Ashley against you, would you care to test your odds?" Spencer says stepping up in front of me and beside Madison. Meg obviously takes it into consideration and knows its not a good idea.

"fine. I've got some last minute campaigning to do anyways…" coward. "see you late at the speeches Ashley. Try not to choke" she says and walks away.

God, just one hit. I swear, one hit and all my anger would be gone.

"hey are you okay?" Spencer asks as they all kind of surround me in a circle.

"I'm fine but that bitch spilled her coffee all over me!" I practically yell as I throw my bag down to the ground. Seriously, I'm about to punch someone.

"look, just chill for a minute. If you get into another fight right now Principal P will kick you out of the election."

"well it doesn't matter at this point because I'm going to lose anyways! My outfit is ruined, my cue cards are covered in coffee and now I can't even read them!" I scream. I think I'm going to have a panic attack.

"okay, look just find a new outfit and copy out your speech again. Most of it's salvageable" Kyla says taking the cards from my hands and flipping through them.

"give me those." I say snatching them back from her. "know you you're probably going to end up cutting yourself on them or something. "and it doesn't matter anyways cause I don't have an outfit and I don't have time to go home and change. Plus, if I went home at this point I probably wouldn't even come back." Might as well give up.

"no look, I have something you can wear" Spencer cuts in. "and while you're getting changed I'll copy out your speech again. I've practically memorized it from reading it so many times anyways"

"Then it's a plan" Madison agrees and before I can argue we're all splitting up and Spencer is pulling me towards the change rooms. Damnit.

………

"no" I say solidly. Though I should have said 'hell no', but I was trying to be nice.

"come on Ashley, I'm almost done copying your speech and you better get your ass out here." Spencer says. I'm practically hiding in the stall as I stare at myself in the mirror.

"I've changed my mind, I'd rather wear my coffee stained outfit than wear this" I argue.

"look, we don't have time to argue about this. And no you wouldn't, I know you, you have to wear clean clothes." Of course she's right about me. She's always right about me, whether I think its right or not.

"but did it really have to be _this_ outfit?" I ask through the door.

"it's the only one I had. It's just a cheerleading uniform Ashley. You used to wear the same on in your freshman year" she argues.

"I feel ridiculous."

"but I'm sure you look hot" she tries to make me feel better. "now will you come out and show me?"

I hesitantly unlock the change room door and pull it open. I step out of the tiny claustrophobic room wearing the spandex top that barely covers my chest and the miniskirt covered in our school colours. I don't know what I was thinking in grade nine. I mean yeah, I look hot, but feel ridiculous.

"aw, there's my sexy cheerleader girlfriend" Spencer says giddily, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me out of the room.

"I'm changing" I say making a dart for the change room, but before I can get anywhere Spencer pulls me back, still holding onto my hand as we look at me in the mirror.

"you're going to do great" she says in a hushed tone as she wraps her arm around my body from behind and gives me a light kiss on the shoulder. "your speech, madam president" she says as she puts the cue cards gently in my hands. I barely look at them, instead I continue to stare back at us in the mirror.

"I'm nervous" I say seriously.

"I know" she whispers back.

"I want to throw up" I say.

"I know" she repeats quietly.

"… I love you" I say, making sure to stare at her directly in the mirror.

"_I know_" she says staring right back at me. "look, I know you probably feel like you're going to fall apart right now-"

"-really? What gave it away?" I ask sarcastically.

"I know you're nervous, but if there's one thing I can promise you, it's that you'll come out of that election in one piece. Whether you win or not."

"how can you be so sure?" I ask.

"something tells me that when you're reading that speech you'll find a way…"

…_And at that moment it felt like all the bad luck I endured today was unquestionably, 100 percent, absolutely… meaningless. _

**A/N: So next chapter will be the speeches. Woo hoo! I hope you liked it.**


	22. The End

**Chapter 22**

**So this is it you guys. This is the end of the line for ATQIDH. This is the last chapter. Sad isn't it? Eh, not that sad, I got major writers block in the middle of it and it slowed down. Yet this is my most successful story so far (measured in number of reviews). But I think I'm going to stick with Spashley stories for now. I've got a couple ideas swimming around in my head, maybe they'll come out in the form of a story one day. Guess you'll just have to wait and see.**

_It's weird how words can say so much more than just what you say. It's weird how they can have a deeper meaning and make so much more sense. Sometimes they come in great things, like speeches. Sometimes they come in small things like the shortest of sentences. Two words even. Two words can mean a lot. Two words can say a lot. Two words can even say it all. In the midst of a heated argument 'I'm sorry' can change it all, in the midst of a heated moment between lovers 'kiss me' can change it all. Sometimes your two words can sound stupid but make so much sense to you. Just look at Paris Hilton. I now hate the term 'that's hot', but those were her two words. So the question is, what two words will change everything for you? What two words will you remember when it's all over?_

"you better get to the gym. Speeches are starting soon" Spencer reminds me.

"just… just one more thing…" I whisper as I put my cards down on the sink and look back over to Spencer.

"what?" she asks, just as confused as she should be.

"this…" I whisper throwing my arms around her neck and pulling her in for that lasting kiss we all long for.

"what was that for?" Spencer whispers and she's so close to me that when she talks and her lips move they barely graze mine.

"I just needed one last thing to get me through this. That was it"

"alright then" she whispers back. "but _now_ you have to go give your speech." She says turning me around in my spot and sending me on my way with a pat on the ass.

I walk over to the door and see her still smiling back at me, waiting for me to leave. I don't know how I'll ever be able to pull away from her again.

……….

This was it… This was the moment.

"thank you Megan for that… interesting speech" Mrs. Cho says to Meg as she sits back down in her seat next to me. I didn't really pay attention to her speech too much. All I heard was clapping and laughing and cheering, which doesn't make me feel any better what so ever.

"up next for the presidential running is… Ashley Davies"

I stand up nervously and step up to the podium, I take a deep breath and try to calm myself. Okay, I can do this… I can do this. Now all I have to do is read my speech…

Holy shit.

I left my speech in the bathroom.

I think I'm going to pass out. I look around the audience to see if I can find Spencer but I don't see the blonde anywhere. Oh my god, okay what do I do? Okay, I'm just going to have to B.S. my way through this thing. Oh god, everyone's staring at me. Breathing is now becoming a problem.

"pst." I hear someone whisper. I turn to my left to see Spencer behind the curtains. Oh thank god! She quickly walks over hands me my speech and takes off back behind the curtains. What would I do without her? Probably die of embarrassment.

I look back out into the audience and I see Spencer slip off to the side. Okay, I can do this.

I look down at my cue cards and see Spencer's girl writing. I can do this. All I have to do is read and smile. Read… and smile. Here goes nothing.

"So what does it mean to be president? Does it mean having control of the school? Does it mean being the most popular person in the entire student body? Well to me being president means-" I flip to go to my next cue card, but I'm stopped. And I know now is probably the worst possible moment in my life to stop, but I can't help it.

Shoved in the middle of my cue cards is a slip of paper. A familiar slip of paper. Remember my private book? Yeah well apparently I didn't hide it well enough under my bed because here, sitting in front of me, is the slip of paper I wrote all those years ago. You know, the hold me, kiss me, love me thing. Yeah well, here it is.

With answers.

And obviously answered by Spencer because her girl writing matches my cue cards. And I don't know what it was about her answers but it changed something. Actually, it changed everything. Written on that slip of paper were my questions, and her answers. Written on that piece of paper was…

Hold me?

_Until I can't feel my arms_

Kiss me?

_Until my lips turn numb._

Love me?

_Until my heart stops beating._

I guess she slipped it in there on purpose because when I looked at her in the audience she was staring right back at me, knowing exactly what I was looking at.

"Miss. Davies?" Mrs. Cho asks. I turn my head to her and realize I've been zoned out for like 2 and a half minutes now.

"right… sorry." I apologize quickly. I guess I should get on with my speech. But it's weird. I've suddenly got this feeling. A good feeling. Nothing sexual. But a good feeling. A feeling where I feel… better. And I know it's because of her. I take my cue cards and tear them straight down the middle in front of the audience. The only left in my hands is the note with my questions and answers.

"I don't think I'll need my cue cards anymore" I say into the microphone and get a small chuckle out of the audience. "Now I'm sure my opponent, Megan, has made some excellent points in her speech. Not that I was listening or anything" I say getting another laugh out of the audience and a glare from Meg. "but I think my speech will be a little different. Now I know this is a presidential campaign, but let's just take a step back for a second and… _evaluate_. We spend about 700 days in high school, out of about 20 or 30 thousand in our entire life. And what is it about high school that stands out so much in our life? Is it the immense amount of stress caused by the homework? The amount of hair we lose when arguing with our teachers? Or is it those embarrassing moments that people seem to remember 10 years later at the high school reunion? Well truth is, it's all of it, and more. We spend more time at this school than we do at home. And it becomes like a second home to us. Our friends become a second family, and we remember it forever. We remember the lame jokes we shared with a friend, or the incredibly hard math test we had last week. We remember it all. But the thing is high school isn't just about doing work or being student body president. High school is where we find ourselves. It's where we make our hardest decisions. And I don't know why adults think that 17 year olds can make decisions that affect the rest of our life, but they do. They assume that we know exactly what we're doing, but we don't. We're just as lost as everyone else. And to the freshman this year, I know you're lost but that feeling doesn't go away. It will always be there. But as you go through the four years you'll come to learn that sometimes it gets easier, and sometimes it doesn't. I wake up every morning and stare at myself in the mirror and ask myself… where exactly… do I fit in? And I draw a complete blank... You guys look up to me and Meg for answers. Answers to questions only you know. And I have no idea where you guys got the idea that we had all the answers, because despite what we both say, we have no idea what the hell we're doing. But for some reason you chose us to look up to. You're asking me to tell you what to do? You need to stop listening to me. And stop listening to Meg. Stop listening to the people telling you what to do, and who to be. Because we're all just as lost as you are. Don't think for a second that we know what we're doing. I am just like you. In every psychological aspect, I am just like you. All I want from high school is that minimal education that will get me through life. All I want is to make friends I can lean on in the future. All I want is to be able to hold my girlfriend's hand when I walk down the hallway. I have dreams just like the rest of you guys. And I'm tired of my dreams being held back by the stereotypes of high school. Why should I let someone else control my life? And let me tell you something, as soon as you let someone else make a decision for you, you take away any and all control you once possessed. So a word of advice… don't let someone else control your life, because when someone else controls your life, it's no longer _your_ life. So next time you're wondering which meal to eat at lunch, or which course to take next year, or what person you should date, you remember that no one else can answer your questions, not me, not Meg, no one… You guys have all the answers."

And that was how I ended my speech. Now I can't exactly tell you how the audience reacted, mostly because I was so fazed by what I had just learned myself. I can't believe it took me this long to figure it all out. And I probably wouldn't have even gotten this far if it weren't for Spencer. After the assembly all the students went back to their classrooms to vote. I, being apart of the running couldn't vote. So instead I hung out in the quad, just by myself, waiting for Spencer to finish voting.

"hey stranger. How was that speech?" a familiar voice asks.

"Mac?" I ask, barely recognizing her as I see her standing in her casual clothes, and on my school property. She gives me a hug and takes a seat beside me at the round picnic table. "what are you doing here?"

"Spencer called me, she said it was the day of your speeches and I thought I'd stop by. Is that alright?"

"no, of course it's alright, I'm glad you're here. I just wish you were here earlier" I tell her.

"oh the speech went _that_ well?" she asks.

"well no, kind of, I'm not sure. At first I lost my cue cards, then Spencer showed up with them, but in the end I didn't end up using them and just kind of winged it. I'm waiting on the results now."

"oh, so it went _that_ well?" she repeats with a smirk, knowing that it went a lot better than I was actually fearing.

"yeah, it did" I say with a small smile. "but I'm glad you're here. You know we used to spend so much time together when we were dating, But I guess it felt forced to me. Now that we're friends it feels easier. Right? I mean we are friends right?"

"yeah I'd say so." She shrugs. "I hate to say it but I know I took you for granted when we were dating. And like you said, there's no pressure now, so it's like now since we're not constantly making out or having sex we actually talk. And in the process of talking, things got easier."

"what's this about sex?" Spencer asks as she approaches and sits down on the other side of me.

"just talking about the past" Mac says with a smile. "don't worry, I'm not trying to steal her… back"

"hey, I didn't steal her!" Spencer defends herself. "when I kissed her I didn't know she had a girlfriend, and you guys were already broken up by the time I made my next move"

"uh yeah, we were broken up because you broke us up" Mac says like its obvious.

"well the point is… it's nice to see you Mac" Spencer says with a genuine smile.

"you too, Spencer" she says with a smile too. Wow, I'm glad they are friends, or else this would probably be awkward.

"so did you vote for me or what?" I ask Spencer jokingly, knowing she must have voted for her own girlfriend.

"well see here's the thing… Meg had a _really_ good speech" Spencer tries to pull off. Yeah right.

"oh, okay" I act along with it. "that's fine, you know, I guess I'll just have to go have sex with one of my other girlfriends. Come on Mac" I say grabbing Mac by the hand and going to stand up.

"okay, okay, joke's over" Spence says pulling us back down, giving me a kiss on the cheek to confirm it all.

"so when do you kids get the results of the election?" Mac asks as if she's older. Pft.

"shouldn't be too long, I handed in my ballot like 10 minutes ago then they just have to count everyone's vote up. I'd get Ashley to give you the speech again, but she decided to wing it on stage" Spencer jokes.

"well I'm sorry, I was a little flustered by someone's little note" I hint.

"Well technically, it was your note. I just filled in some answers" spencer says staring at me.

"am I missing something?" Mac cuts in, but neither of us turn to look at her.

"yes" Spencer and I say at the same time.

"okay…" Mac says, confused by the situation. "well, I'm going to go see if I can find Meg and kick her ass. Be back in a few" Mac says jokingly as she gets up and walks away. At least I think it's jokingly. Well it's not like she's going to find her anyways, it's a pretty big school. Chances are she'll get lost before she can find Megan. But she knew Spencer and I needed time alone.

"so I see you snooped through my private book…" I hint.

"I didn't snoop. You just hid your book very poorly" she says with a small smirk.

"it's called a private book for a reason"

"I know, I'm sorry. But I thought that maybe giving you some answers to your own questions might help you understand why you're doing all of this…"

"what do you mean?" I ask.

"well I mean that when you first started running in this thing it wasn't even your choice. Your friends just entered you because they thought you would be a good candidate. And it seemed like, for the longest time, that that was the only reason you were actually in this thing. But what you failed to see is that you would make a great president. You know people can stand up for themselves and make their own decisions, you remind people that they can do what ever they want. Our school needs a president like you."

And it kind of dawned on me right there. As Spencer stared into my eyes and as I stared back I realized something. Something I knew all along, but never really realized. If that makes any sense at all. But it's like it's been there the entire time. I just didn't notice it.

It had always been Spencer. She was my answer. She had always been my answer. I never knew the question I was asking. But… it didn't really matter. Because she was my answer… and that's all I needed to know.

Just as the bell rang our focus was broken as the students came into the quad for lunch.

"I love you" I grab her attention back to me.

"I love you too" she says giving me a quick kiss on the lips and turning to look for her friends.

"no" I say grabbing her attention again. "I mean I really love you" I say clearly. "I like who I am around you. I like who I've become because of you. I like that in my time of need you're there to help me. I like that you're willing to take the risk of losing your friends just to be able to kiss me in public. I like how what you say can make me give an amazing speech. I like that when I say I love you, you say it back. I like it all. In fact, _I love it all_."

Before anyone else could say anything I heard a cry of pain from our left.

"that's for everything you've done!" Mac yells as we see Megan on the ground with her hands to her nose. Oh snap. Mac punched her in the nose. "bitch!" she adds for fun and takes off in the opposite direction before she can get punched back. I can always talk to her later.

Before Spencer can say anything about what _I_ said the principal comes on the P.A. system to announce the winners. Damn all these interruptions.

"ladies and gentlemen, the results of the election are as follow. Your school treasurer will be Anna Wilson, your school secretary will be…" but just then my mind did that thing where it zones out. It seems to be happening a lot lately. Instead of listening to the announcement my mind and eyes drifted to my girlfriend sitting in front of me who was still fazed by what I told her. Before I knew it her lips were on mine. And it's like nothing else mattered. It didn't matter that I had lost my best friend, it didn't matter that my now ex-girlfriend had been wrongly outted to her whole school, it didn't even matter that I had no friends. All that mattered was the girl that I was kissing. Just as I was kissing her I felt her pull back and just stare into my eyes. I still wasn't even paying attention to the announcement, but I'm guessing that's why she pulled away.

I felt the eyes of all the students around us going back and forth between me and Meg, and before I could zone back into reality I looked at Spencer as she smiled at me and mouthed two words. Just two words.

You won.

_Those were the two words. Those were the two words I'm going to remember when it's all over. But more importantly… I'm going to remember who said them._

The End.

**And that was all she wrote. I guess in a way "the end" were like my final two words. If possible see if you can describe this story in two words. I think that'd make for some interesting reviews. Lol. If you can't do it in two words I accept very long and heartfelt reviews as well. So if you want, leave the love. Thanks for reading as always.**

**-GraydonGirl**


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